Israel has both medium and intermediate range Jerichos. The medium-range Jericho I would not have the range to reach many Iranian targets  but the intermediate-range Jericho II’s, capable of hitting targets 1,500 miles away, would have no problem.  The Jerichos would be equipped with high explosives, not nuclear warheads. Asked if the Jericho would have the accuracy and the explosive power to take out a hardened bunker of the sort believed to be protecting Iran’s most-sensitive underground nuclear facilities, one official replied, “You would be surprised at their accuracy” and that the high explosives involved is a special mix of chemical explosives that could conceivably penetrate the Iranian fortifications.

Missile attacks would be coordinated with fighter-bomber attacks (presumably  the Israelis’ extended-range F-15I Strike Eaglet) as well as drone strikes. The fighter bombers would use what one official described as  “high-low, low-high” flight paths — high first to increase fuel efficiency, then low for most of the trip to evade radar, then climbing high again as the weapons are released in what is known as a “flip toss” on the target.  The Israelis would be prepared to lose aircraft if necessary, the officials said.

Windrem amalgamates and synthesizes the views of various unidentified “US and Israeli officials” about a more than likely Israeli attack on Iran in the next several months into a tidy and digestible question-and-answer format. One question he neither asks nor answers is whether Israel is actually capable of successfully carrying out a winner-take-all high tech attack on Iran that could destroy or (more likely) delay the development of Iran’s budding nuclear program, at minimal costs–financial, environmental or in casualties–to itself and anyone else except Iran.

Whether it’s due to technical glitches or human error, military hardware doesn’t always function the way it’s supposed to. A mysterious Yasour helicopter  crash on July 26, 2010, during a training exercise in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania was, according to Jerusalem Post military analyst, Yaakov Katz:

…a blow to the IAF’s image and raises two serious questions – first, whether the transport helicopter, which has been in IAF service for over 40 years, is still a reliable and sturdy aircraft, and second, if this is what happens during a regular training exercise in Romania, what will happen in a future IAF long-range operation.

Katz went on to ask and answer the obvious question:

One might wonder why an Israeli helicopter was in Romania in the first place. The answer is that every long-range IAF operation today, wherever it may take place in the world including in Israel, takes into consideration ‘third-sphere threats’ like Iran, which are far from Israel.

On Nov. 10, 2010, two Israeli pilots were killed in the Negev Desert when their F15-I crashed. Last Sunday (Jan. 29)  a state of the art Israeli Heron TP unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), also known as the Eitan, crashed in central Israel. No further reports have emerged to date regarding the cause of the disintegration of “the drone that can reach  Iran,” believed to be the first such Israeli UAV crash of its kind.

The huge drone–the size of a Boeing 737, with a wingspan of 86 feet, and capable of carrying a one ton payload and reportedly capable of staying aloft for as long as 45 hours–went down near the Tel Nof Air Force Base not far from the town of Gedera in central Israel, about 20 miles southeast of Tel Aviv. According to the Associated Press, the Heron TP is “the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel’s military arsenal” and would “be featured prominently in any potential Israeli operation against Iran and its expanding nuclear program.” It can be aloft for as long as 45 hours, “making it capable of conducting a wide variety of missions.”  Last September, Katz had reported that the Israeli Air Force’s  claim that the deployment of the Heron TP by the end of 2011 would “boost its intelligence-gathering capabilities” and that “foreign reports” said the drone also had the ability to launch missiles.”

Early press reports about the downing of the UAV were inconsistent as to whether the UAV test flight was “routine” or “experimental.” A “flagship product” of Israeli Aircraft Industries, the Israeli business daily Globes assessed the cost of the downed  UAV at $10 million. Y-Net cited the figure as $5 million, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty at $35 million. Israel is currently trying to market the drone to other countries and France recently decided to  purchase Israeli Heron TPs instead of US Predator drones for use in NATO operations.

There hasn’t been much coverage of the investigation regarding the cause of the drone crash since it occurred. Initial reports stated that the cause was attributed to either human error or technical malfunction or some combination of the two. One possibility raised was that the one ton weight-bearing capability of the drone had been exceeded.  (A GBU-28 “bunker buster” bomb weighs between 4500-5000 lbs.) Katz cited an explanation from military sources that the aircraft was flying with a new navigation component that might have disrupted the drone’s automatic flight systems. Yoav Zitun of Y-Net reported that a highly-advanced device on the wing  was being tested during the drone’s flight.

Drones seem to offer the potential–and very real possibility–of wreaking enormous damage on an enemy  from far away, with no military casualties to the country and with no loss of life to the military forces of the state launching the attack. On the other hand, UAVs don’t always reach their intended targets. Their “precision,” like that of a video game, depends upon the human hands on the controllers, and the choices made. These, in turn, are guided by the intelligence data they have available to them, at least some of which is gathered by UAVs.

The implications of last week’s crash of the Heron TP is a reminder that UAV technology, despite its increasing use, is far from perfect–a point that has received no discussion in the Israeli or global media. Presumably the fact that it is flawed is implicit. Nonetheless, the ramifications (and potential unintended consequences) of its deployment are staggering.

Iran (in case you were wondering) has its own UAV program, the domestically produced Kerrar. With an estimated range of 620 miles, a payload of 500 lbs. and a maximum speed of over 600 mph, the Kerrar is not (yet) capable of reaching Israel. This is good news for Israel for two reasons. The first–that Israel is out of reach–is a no-brainer. But there is another one too. An Israeli drone en route to Iran but shot down or otherwise crashing in Iraq or Bahrain might be declared to be Iranian, and be used as a pretext for war under international law.

What if, in the next test, an Israeli drone were to go further from its base but fall short of its target, causing widespread loss of life and property damage in Iraq, the Arabian peninsula, Turkey, or within Israel itself? If a malfunctioning Israeli drone en route to Iran were to crash and cause a disaster, would Israel accept responsibility, or would it point the finger at Iran, raising the specter and stakes of international retaliation? It might take days, weeks or months, possibly even years, for the truth to become known–long after a retaliatory strike had taken place.

Blogger Richard Silverstein has already suggested that last week’s crash was not that of a Heron TP but a Hezbollah drone targeting Israel. While Silverstein’s claim isn’t being taken seriously by anyone but himself and some of his readers (see Dimi Reider’s rejoinder on +972), it’s certainly within the range of possibility that a similar incident and accusation, coming from the lunatic right instead of the left, might be taken at face value, and drag the US into yet another war before the facts were even known.

Could the consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran that didn’t succeed be almost as bad–or even worse–than one that did?

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially released this statement on Tuesday morning:

A short while ago, IDF Navy fighters intercepted the cargo vessel “Victoria” loaded with various weaponry. According to assessments, the weaponry on-board the vessel was intended for the use of terror organizations operating in the Gaza Strip. The vessel, flying under a Liberian flag, was intercepted some 200 miles west of Israel’s coast. This incident was part of the Navy’s routine activity to maintain security and prevent arms smuggling, in light of IDF security assessments.

The force was met with no resistance from the crew on-board and the vessel is now being led by the Israeli Navy to the Israeli port in Ashdod for further searches and detailed inspection of the cargo.

The vessel was on its way from Mersin Port in Turkey to Alexandria Port in Egypt. The IDF would like to note that Turkey is not tied to the incident in any way.

The operation was approved as necessary in accordance with government directives in light of the Chief of the General Staff’s recommendations.

This press release isn’t just about finding hidden weapons on a ship, and exculpating the crew and the country of Turkey. It’s a declaration that Israel considers its maritime domain to extend 200 nautical miles or more beyond its Mediterranean coastline. Within it, Israel claims the right to board, inspect, intercept and impound the cargo ships of other nations at will–a unilateral Mediterranean Monroe Doctrine of sorts.

One of the reasons that forcible boarding and seizure of  the Mavi Marmara — the lead ship in the flotilla that attempted to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip last May to deliver humanitarian aid — was so controversial because Israeli naval commandos had raided the convoy when its ships were  40 miles out at sea, in international waters. In a Washington Post article by Colum Lynch last June, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, cited the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflict at Sea in support of Israel’s right to enforce its blockade of Gaza, and “to intercept even on the high seas, even in international waters.”

Anthony D’Amato, a professor of International Law at Northwestern University School of Law disagreed, challenging Regev’s interpretation and declaring the raid on the Gaza flotilla an illegal challenge to the principle of “freedom of the seas.” D’Amato said the laws of war between states didn’t apply between Israel and Hamas, which is not even a state. Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies, noted that  “Israel is now claiming a new international law, invented just for this purpose: the preventive ‘right’ to capture any naval vessel in international waters if the ship was about to violate a blockade.”

The interdiction of the Victoria takes this claim even further. Israel is now testing its right to seize a cargo vessel of a neutral country 200 miles off its coastline, whose destination (Egypt) is not subject to Israel’s blockade. It claims this right on grounds that the ship’s cargo is weapons that might eventually be smuggled into Gaza. It’s particularly helpful if Israel can demonstrate that Iran is behind the arms shipment, since UN Security Council Resolution 1747 prohibits Iran from supplying, selling or transferring arms to other states. While Israel generally takes a dim view of UN resolutions that apply to itself, it takes UN resolutions against Iran far more seriously, having just announced it will file a complaint with the UNSC about the Victoria’s clandestine cargo.

In the process, Israel can claim it is doing the world a favor by helping to enforce a UN resolution.

The initial IDF announcement of the seizure of the Victoria and its cargo didn’t mention Iran, but the identification of Iran as the source of the cache of weapons quickly became the focus of subsequent Israeli news releases and press reports. Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu offered a teaser when he told Israeli Army Radio that Syria’s fingerprints were all over the shipment, predicting Israel will “find more evidence of the Iran, Syria, Hezbollah axis.”

Shortly afterwards, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We are currently collecting information and the one thing that is certain is that the weapons are from Iran with a relay station in Syria.”

The evidence?

Rear Admiral Rani Ben Yehuda initially hinted that it might be more than coincidental that the Syrian weapons shipment had occurred shortly after two Iranian vessels had transited the Suez Canal en route to Syria in late February:

Just days before the cargo was loaded aboard the ship, two Iranian warships crossed the Suez Canal for the first time since the 1979 revolution. Ben-Yehuda said that he did not know if the Iranian ships brought the weaponry that was loaded onto the Victoria but that the timing raises serious questions.

“This needs to be considered,” he said.

So let’s consider it: Two Iranian warships transited the Suez Canal, for the first time in 32 years, on February 22. The Israeli Deputy Naval Commander suggests that, bypassing the Sinai peninsula, the ships transported Iranian arms to Syria. Those arms were to be shipped back to northern Egypt, past an Israeli naval blockade in the Mediterranean, so they could be smuggled into Gaza. Then the ships sailed back in early March, passing the Sinai coast and again transiting the Suez Canal. Hmmm….Sounds more like “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight” than “the most dangerous nation on earth.”

Among the weapons reportedly found aboard the Victoria were C-704  anti-ship missiles. Ben-Yehuda initially said,“The missile is made in China and it is in the possession of the Iranians, and this adds to suspicions that it came from Iran.” The Jerusalem Post‘s newly re-headlined piece, “Navy Intercepts Iranian Weapons Bound for Hamas“, on Wednesday stated that among the weapons were C-740s with “Nasr 1 written on them,” noting that “Nasr is what Iran calls the missile.” Although Iran opened a factory last spring to mass produce Nasr-1 missiles, which are identical to the Chinese C-704s, it wasn’t until Thursday morning that Adm. Eliezer Marom stated that the C-704s had been made in Iran.

But on Wednesday, Ben Yehuda was still basing the claim of Iranian responsibility for the arms shipment on the accompanying how-to manuals, which were written in Persian:

…guidebooks in Farsi had been found on the ship, along with other symbols of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, another indication that the Victoria was an Iranian attempt to shift the order of power in the Middle East.

Exactly what use Arabic-speaking Gazans would have had for Persian language manuals is unclear. Farsi is written in Arabic characters, but is otherwise unintelligible to a reader who only knows Arabic.

The IDF also asserted that “the identification document for the anti-ship missiles was in Persian and contained emblems of the Iranian government throughout…This incident further demonstrates Iranian and Syrian involvement in strengthening and arming terror organizations in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.” Again, if true, not very smart!

Foreign correspondents invited by the IDF to view Victoria’s secret” cargo Wednesday morning were apparently unimpressed, especially after being held up at a security checkpoint for over an hour before being allowed to view the Victoria’s clandestine cargo. According to Y-Net, 30 reporters and photographers “left the Ashdod Port outraged.”

Is Iran involved in arms smuggling? It’s quite possible that it  is. But like the previous interceptions of the Francop and the Karine A, the Victoria interception coincides with pressure on Israel to move forward in making peace with the Palestinians by creating a Palestinian state. All three interception narratives attest to Israeli determination to keep its tensions with Iran front and center on the stage of world events, regardless of what else is happening, in order to explain why peace with the Palestinians can’t and won’t happen.

But the ho-hum quality of the interception narratives, and the yawns they are beginning to elicit, should not be allowed to distract from Israel’s increasingly radical reinterpretations of international law, which it justifies with the specter of “the Iranian threat.” That’s Victoria’s real secret.