By Dan Williams
HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) - Anticipating a showdown withIran, Israel decides secretly to deploy a submarine off itsarch-foe's coast.
But how? The quickest route from Israel's Mediterraneancoast is via the Suez Canal, which runs through Egypt and whichthe classified vessels shun. So the submarine is hidden in thebelly of a commercial tanker, which delivers it to the Gulf.
Such is the plot of an Israeli thriller, "UnderseaDiplomacy". Does it hold water? Perhaps not. Then again, theauthor, Shlomo Erell, is no mere novelist. He's an ex-admiralwith experience in Israel's most sensitive military planning.
"It's pure fiction, but it's informed fiction," he saidsimply, when asked if his book reflects how the Israeli fleetof Dolphin-class submarines could be used against Iran, whoseleadership has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map",stoking international concern over Tehran's nuclear programme.
Israel has three Dolphins, with two more on order fromHowaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, a German shipyard custom-buildingthem at a steep discount as part of Berlin's bid to shore up aJewish state founded in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust.
The submarines are a subject of deepest secrecy givenspeculation that they carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
Many analysts believe the Dolphins are Israel's "secondstrike" weapons, referring to the Cold War theory that acountry can deter foes from launching nuclear attacks bymaintaining the ability to retaliate, even after its ownterritory has been laid waste. A nuclear "platform" out at seais the best guarantee.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, and independentexperts say it is years away from any such capability. Some, inturn, think Israel's expanding submarine fleet may be part ofpreparations to foil the perceived future threat through force.
"There is nothing on the horizon to suggest Iran would havethe capability to knock out Israel's nuclear delivery means,"said Sam Gardiner, a retired U.S. air force colonel who stagesMiddle East war games for U.S. government and private clients.
The Dolphins, he said, may be part of "a conventionalcapability to deal with the number of targets Israel believeswould need to be struck in a conventional preemptive attack".
DISTANCE NO OBJECT?
Israel sent jets to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 andhas hinted it could do the same against Iranian facilities ifU.S.-led diplomatic pressure failed to rein in Tehran's plans.
But the Iraqi raid was on a single site, relatively closeto Israel's borders. Targets in Iran might be too numerous anddistant for Israel's air force, especially as intermediate Arabstates or Turkey would likely refuse overflight rights.
Israel is assumed to have ballistic missiles, yet its smallsize may make surprise launches impossible: an unannouncedmissile test in January became news within minutes as thestartled residents of nearby towns reported the roaringtakeoff.
Submarines could bridge the gap, especially if positionedin Iranian waters. That possibility has given rise tospeculation that Israel wants five Dolphins in order to allowfor at least one to be at sea at all times while others arebeing serviced.
The question remains of how far they might travel.
Israeli navy sources say the Dolphins do not use the Suez-- to avoid being inspected by Egyptian harbourmasters. Thatmeans that, to reach the Gulf, Israel would either have toresort to fantastical ruses like the one in "UnderseaDiplomacy", or send the submarines around Africa -- amonth-long trip at least.
Jason Alderwick, a maritime analyst with the InternationalInstitute for Strategic Studies in London, is sceptical.
"I don't buy the idea of a rotation. These submarines havenot been purchased with a view to operating in the Gulf," hesaid. As Dolphins run on conventional rather than nuclear powerso require regular refuelling and shore maintenance, hedescribed them as better suited to close Mediterraneanmissions.
Israel also has access to the Red Sea through Eilat port.But navy sources said there was no plan to dock submarinesthere because the narrow Red Sea, which is shared with severalArab states, is vulnerable to blockades at the Straits ofTiran.
DETERRENTS NEVER USED
Restricted to the Mediterranean, analysts point out, theIsraeli Dolphins could pose a "second-strike" threat to Iranonly if they carried nuclear cruise missiles capable of hittingtargets as far as 1,500 km (970 miles) away.
Lee Willett of the Royal United Services Institute forDefence and Security Studies noted that Dolphins lacked thevertical tubes used by much bigger Western and Soviet-erasubmarines to launch ballistic missiles.
Cold War tests showed nuclear warheads are too heavy to bedelivered long distances on cruise missiles, so Israel couldhit Iran only with conventional warheads if they were firedfrom the Mediterranean, he said.
A nuclear attack on Iran by a Dolphin, Willett argued,would have to be from the Gulf, which in turn would give awayan unsupported submarine's position and probably doom it tobeing destroyed by surviving Iranian forces.
"The whole point of a deterrent is that it's never used,"Willett said. "In designing the Dolphins as a second-strikeplatform, I imagine the Israelis were thinking 'it's not ideal,but it's the best we've got'."
Israel does not discuss its nuclear capabilities, under an"ambiguity" policy billed as warding off regional enemies whileavoiding the kind of provocations that can trigger arms races.
Erell appeared to support such thinking. The message of hisbook -- which made a modest splash in Israel, and is currentlyavailable only in Hebrew -- was "how to use a submarine withoutresorting to war". "It's about affecting statecraft," he said.
(Editing by Andrew Roche and Sara Ledwith)