Haaretz
Shvat 16, 5766
LONDON - A United States attack on
Iran could eventually lead to a lengthy confrontation
involving many other countries in the region, including
Israel, a British think tank said in a report released on
Monday.
"A U.S. military attack on Iranian nuclear
infrastructure would be the start of a protracted military
confrontation that would probably involve Iraq, Israel and
Lebanon as well as the United States and Iran, with the
possibility of west Gulf States being involved as well," it
said.
According to the Oxford Research Group report,
thousands of military personnel and hundreds of civilians
would be killed if the U.S. launched an air strike on Iran to
prevent it from developing nuclear
arms.
The report said any bombing
of Iran by U.S. forces, or by Israel, would have to be part of
a surprise attack that would inevitably catch many Iranians
unprotected.
An attack could lead to the closure of the
Gulf at the Straits of Hormuz and would probably have a
substantial impact on oil prices, as well as spurring new
attacks by Muslim radicals on Western interests, the report
said.
"Military deaths in [the] first wave of attacks
against Iran would be expected to be in the thousands,
especially with attacks on air bases and Revolutionary Guard
facilities," said the report by Paul Rogers of the University
of Bradford.
"Civilian deaths would be in the many
hundreds at least," it said. "If the war evolved into a wider
conflict, primarily to pre-empt or counter Iranian responses,
the casualties would eventually be much
higher."
Western states suspect Iran of secretly aiming
to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran says its nuclear facilities
are intended to produce only electricity.
The U.S. and
Israel have said they would prefer to solve the dispute
through diplomacy but have not ruled out military
action.
The report said an attack by the U.S. or Israel
on Iran would probably spur Tehran to work as rapidly as
possible towards developing a nuclear military
option.
It said U.S. forces, already tied down in Iraq,
would have a limited number of military options when dealing
with Iran and would have to rely almost entirely on the air
force and navy.
Any attack would almost certainly unify
Iran and bolster the government in Tehran, and mean that any
future U.S. relationship with Iran would have to be based on
violence, the report said.
A military response to the
crisis would be a "particularly dangerous option and should
not be considered further," the report
concluded.