Re: Russia to sell surface-to-air missiles to Iran
They are very much like the US Tomahawk, CEP is within 2 meters.
The point is that the Isrealis can and will hit whatever they want. They have satellites to locate the anti-aircraft batteries, and the cruise missles fly low and have the radar cross section of a bird.
The only thing the Iranians can do is bombard the Israelis with essentially SCUD missles with conventional warheads in retaliation. Much like Saddams' SCUD, they have a CEP of 1.3 km, in otherwords no accuracy at all. That is fine for delivering a nuke, but not so fine for any other type of attack. The Patriot and Arrow batteries will down the majority of the missles, as they fly high, and give plenty of warning. So the most that the Iranians can do is chase people into bomb shelters, and be seen as fairly impotent in their response.
The EU and IAEA have always been the carrot, and Israel the stick. The carrots have failed. The recent bluster from Iran just gives the Israelis better footing to claim self-defense for an attack. The window for an attack is closing, but the Israelis probably have excellent intelligence coming from Russia. Don't forget that Russia still has millions of Jews, and many Russian immigrants to Israel still maintain close ties at home. The Russians are in the drivers seat. They could care less if Israel destroys things, the Russians will almost certainly make money rebuilding whatever the Israelis blow up. Irans only real friend is Hezbollah, and Israel does not mind if they come out to play, Israels now has tactics that work against their leadership.
Israel has outsmarted and outmaneuvered the Arabs for 50 years and 3 wars. There is no reason to think that has changed.