If Israel attacks Iran, what would U.S. do?

As the idea of an Israeli attack on Iran edges from if toward when, a new question looms: What would the United States do?

The question is preoccupying not just the White House but the Obama and McCain presidential campaigns, although neither would address the matter on the record.

Some neoconservatives in Washington, known for their closeness to the Israeli defense establishment, predict that Israel may strike between the election in November and the inauguration of the next president on Jan. 21, if only because Israel could count on U.S. support then.

“Israel would be unlikely to do it before the U.S. election,” said John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who is close to the pro-Israel community in the capital. “But after the election and before the inauguration would be a window.”

Israeli officials will not name a date, but some have grown more pronounced in recent weeks about the increased prospect of a strike should Iran develop nuclear weapons capability.

“A year from now Iran will be very, very close to the completion of its first nuclear bomb,” Ephraim Sneh, a member of Israel’s ruling coalition, said earlier this month at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference. “I may predict that there is — will be no government in Jerusalem which would allow it to happen.”

Bolton says that is not an unreasonable conclusion with the current administration. “From past policies, they know that Bush holds a favorable view of Israel’s right to self defense,” Bolton said of Israeli officials.

Israel’s closeness to Bush has led Bolton and fellow neoconservatives such as William Kristol to predict that Israel may time its strike before Inauguration Day (Jan. 21, 2009), particularly if U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the putative Democratic nominee, wins the presidency.

“The thing that makes an Israeli strike more likely is when any U.S. politician gets up and says Iran can be contained,” said Michael Rubin. He is a colleague of Bolton’s at the American Enterprise Institute and an alumnus of the Bush administration’s Pentagon policy unit on Iran.

Obama argues for tough diplomacy with Iran — carrots of engagement and sticks of increased sanctions — and insists that such diplomacy may yet contain the threat of a nuclear Iran.

Even if the winner is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has adopted a posture on Iran closer to that of the Bush administration, Israel is likelier to trust the Bush administration, Bolton said.

“You can’t predict what a new president will do with accuracy,” he said.

An Israeli attack almost certainly would need a green light from the U.S. Airspace over Turkey and Iraq, controlled by the U.S. and one of its closest allies, would be the likely flight path from Israel to Iran.

“You would absolutely need permission and the IFF codes,” said Jonathan Schanzer, the director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center. “IFF” refers to the electronic Identification Friend or Foe codes that combat planes need to cross international airspace.

Schanzer’s group is allied with the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is a Bush administration alumnus, having worked at the Treasury Department as an intelligence analyst.

Orde Kittrie, an Arizona State University expert on Iran and proliferation, said Israel likely would expect U.S. backup after a first strike on Iran.

“You’d have to send several waves” of air attacks, Kittrie said. “It’s not clear the Israelis have the capacity for more than one wave. The Americans do have the capacity.”

Rubin has researched the consequences of an attack for a bipartisan U.S. Senate panel considering its consequences. He said an attack would require at least 1,400 sorties — well beyond Israel’s capacity.

Iran’s nuclear program is “not out in the open like Osirak,” the Iraqi nuclear reactor Israel destroyed in 1981, he said. “It’s all over the place. It might take more than one sortie to strike” some targets. “You’ll have to go after the military structure, take out the means for retaliation.”

Israel lost the element of surprise after the 1981 strike, Rubin said. Now Iran and other Persian Gulf states have sophisticated anti-aircraft systems.

The difficulties notwithstanding, Israel seems determined to signal that it is considering a strike on Iran.

Last week, The New York Times reported that the Israeli military held an exercise this month involving more than 100 combat aircraft flying up to 900 miles — the distance between Israel and Iran. Helicopters also conducted pilot rescue exercises.

The Bush administration alumni interviewed agreed that the administration likely would back Israel in the eventuality of an attack. But they added that the administration also is cognizant of the dangers: terrorist attacks by Hezbollah terrorists, Iran’s proxies, in the Middle East and beyond, as well as missile strikes by Iran.

The most threatening element is a broader conflagration involving the U.S., which has some 150,000 troops in Iran’s neighbor, Iraq.

Bolton said that available Western intelligence on Iran does not adequately predict the outcome of a strike, leaving open the danger of an enraged — and still nuclear capable — regime in Tehran.

“You could have a successful military strike that destroys the conversion facility at Esfahan only to find there’s another conversion facility 100 miles away,” Bolton said, referring to the process that creates weapons-grade uranium. “You could have the risks and downsides of nuclear attack without breaking the cycle.”

The White House and the campaigns would not talk about such a prospect beyond issuing generic defenses of Israel’s right to self-defense, but it is clear there are concerns.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, is touring Israel this week on a surprise visit.

Senior advisers to both presidential campaigns signed on to a report last week calling for an urgent dialogue between Israel and the U.S. to address the prospect of military action in dealing with Iran’s threat.