Iran Attack on Saudi Arabia Shows Why Israel Must Shut Down Its Nuclear Reactor

The attack perpetrated by the Iranians on the Saudi refineries – be it directly or indirectly – has direct implications for our security. These ramifications still have not been widely discussed in public, but I intend to do so here because they require rethinking Iran’s capabilities vis-à-vis Israel.

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1. A total of 20 cruise missiles and drones were used in the attack. Such an operation requires a high degree of coordination, real-time communication, navigation and target selection. The Iranians had previously demonstrated the ability to operate a large number of drones (nearly 50) in a military exercise this past July. The Iranians also demonstrated impressive communications capability when they seized control of an advanced American drone, brought it down in their territory and copied it to suit their needs. Drone wreckage discovered in Saudi Arabia shows that the Iranians are manufacturing and operating drones so advanced (with jet engines and significant stealth capabilities) that they do not lag behind Israeli capabilities in this field.

>> Iran's audacious Saudi attack will require Israel to upgrade Its missile defense | Analysis

2. Seventeen targets incurred a direct hit in this concentrated bombardment. Considering the 20 projectiles whose debris was found at the attack site, that’s an 85-percent success rate, which indicates the very high capability and reliability of the technology that was used. By comparison, 60 percent of the targets were hit in cruise missile attacks conducted by the United States. And in Russia’s missile strikes on ISIS in Syria, some of the missiles went astray in the desert. The Iranian technology is reliable and advanced, and the Iranians are capable of producing and operating simultaneously a large number of drones and cruise missiles.

3. The combination of drones and cruise missiles (for marking targets, final guidance or measuring damage) proved highly effective in hitting pinpoint targets, and possibly as well for non-stationary targets. The photos show the precision that was achieved in the attack. Each one of the spherical gas tankers in the picture was hit in the center. The pictures also show that the strike precision was one meter, much greater than what is possible with simple satellite guidance or setting a pre-calculated ground trajectory.