Free The Last Israelis - an Apocalyptic, Military Thriller about an Israeli Submarine and a Nuclear Iran by Noah Beck Page B

increased its reliance on this highly effective but controversial tactic. Further complicating relations, the two countries fought a series of lethal, military skirmishes along the porous international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Against this backdrop of escalating tensions, the U.S. killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 on Pakistani soil brought the countries’ relations to a new nadir.
    As the rift between Pakistan and the United States deepened, Iran’s readiness to pay Pakistan even more money for ready-made nuclear warheads grew. Iran’s increased interest could be explained at least in part because the U.S. had made significant advances in the development of its Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The 30,000-pound, earth-penetrating bomb could potentially destroy even Iran’s massively fortified Fordo facility, buried under hundreds of feet of rock,where Iran might try to enrich enough uranium to create its own nuclear weapon. The Islamic Republic’s best answer to an American elimination of Iran’s “zone of immunity” was a traditional nuclear deterrent in the form of ready-to-use nuclear warheads purchased from Pakistan.
    Iran’s advanced missile development program had already solved the problem of how to deliver a nuclear warhead. In May 2009, Iran announced that it had successfully tested a Sejjili-2 missile, which is a two-stage, primarily solid-propellant surface-to-surface missile. The U.S. Defense Secretary at the time, Robert Gates, confirmed the test in Congressional testimony that same month. With a range of up to 1,500 miles, the Sejjili-2 missile enabled Iran to strike every U.S. military base in the Middle East and in much of Europe. In late 2011, Iran had also begun working on a missile with a range of 6,000 miles, capable of targeting the continental United States. Even without sophisticated missile systems, Iran could always resort to more primitive delivery methods. Use of a crude oil tanker or cargo container could still bring a devastating nuclear detonation to a major U.S. city, killing over half a million people and causing over $1 trillion of damage. Thus, it made a lot of sense that Iran would purchase the only part of its overall strategy that was still missing: the nuclear warheads.
    Piecing together the explanation for Pakistan’s sale of nuclear weapons to Iran made the threat no less dire, but Daniel tried to view the development as positively as possible: “The Iranians bought nuclear warheads probably to deter an attack from the U.S. and not because they plan to use them offensively against Israel,” he reasoned. The problem was that nobody knew exactly how many such warheads Iran had bought; the more they had purchased, the less Daniel could be sure that they were all intended purely for defensive purposes. Thus, his attempts at optimism ultimately failed.
    The captain would need to decide how and when to share all of the disturbing information from headquarters. The hardest detail to disclose to the crew was their target destination because they would immediately realize that – after just finishing ten days at sea with merely a four-hour shore leave – they now had at least six weeks on the submarine awaiting them. The lengthy absence from home ahead might seem even more palpable after the frustratingly short reunion with loved ones that had just finished. Thus, Daniel initially thought that it might be best to announce that they were going to the Gulf of Aden, which would mean only about a month at sea, and then later ease them into the idea of a longer mission. But then he realized that disclosing the dramatic news about Iran’s declared nuclear arsenal should increase morale enough to compensate for any bad news. Still, sensing how much so many dramatic updates could potentially distract the crew, Daniel preferred to wait until the Dolphin’s remaining routine tests and maintenance work had been performed, all systems had been checked, and they had embarked.
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