Beginning on Friday at noon, the Patterson School ran a 22 hour simulation of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Patterson School policy simulations are designed to create situations in which student must make decisions in a limited time frame based on asymmetric and incomplete information. In the past, we have simulated a coup in Belarus, the death of Fidel Castro, and a hostage crisis in Afghanistan, among other events.
Structure:
The teams consisted of 5-6 students, led by either a faculty member or a recent graduate. The students played the foreign and defense policy principals of their respective states, with the leader playing the CoG (Russia and Iran both had two CoGs).
United States
United Nations
Israel
Iran
Iraq
Russia
Saudi Arabia
The simulation was primarily focused on the key political decisions associated with the fallout of the attack, rather than the military details. When necessary, Simulation Control (myself and two recent Patterson graduates) supplied information and made rulings regarding military efforts. The simulation was conducted in real time, although certain events were telescoped for playability and dramatic effect.
As was the case in the last two years, the Patterson School conducted the simulation in cooperation with the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications. Students from the SJT operated websites representing two news networks, Gulf News Service (an Al Jazeera clone) and International News Network (a CNN clone). These networks were managed by faculty from the SJT, and were independent from Simulation Control; on more than one occasion one of the networks declined to run stories from Simulation Control either because of a lack of confirmation or a lack of newsworthiness.
Course of the Simulation:
The simulation began when the last Israeli aircraft left Iranian airspace at 12pm EST. In order to create an incentive for a second strike (and thus tension between the teams), Simulation Control posited an intelligence leak from Israel to Russia, then from Russia to Iran. This leak allowed Iran to organize its air defense network such that the effectiveness of the Israeli strike was reduced. Nevertheless, Iranian forces were badly mauled, losing dozens of interceptors and suffering damage to all key targets in exchange for downing seven Israeli bombers. One surviving pilot was eventually captured in Iran, and another was captured by a pro-Iranian militia in Iraq.
The Iranians responded with a limited ballistic missile strike against Israel. Most of the missiles were intercepted, about half by the United States and half by Israel. The remaining missiles did no significant damage. Iran also pressured Hezbollah and Hamas to engage Israel. Simulation Control proceeded on the assumption that both Hezbollah and Hamas would be reluctant to commit there full strength to this, and consequently the attacks in both north and south were light. Nevertheless, Israel became involved in a costly series of tit-for-tat exchanges with Hezbollah.
Overall, however, the Iranians played it very cool. They made no effort to destabilize Iraq; in fact, they explicitly pressured affiliates in Iraq to refrain from attacks. Iran also made no attacks on Gulf shipping, or on any other targets. This posture clearly defied the expectations of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Iraq, and Simulation Control. The lack of a strong Iranian response left attention squarely on Israel, in particular the violation of Saudi and Iraqi airspace in the course of the attack.
The destruction of above ground facilities at Natanz, and the consequent dispersal of stockpiled LEU, focused the attention of the United Nations and became a growing problem for Israel. Increased radiation levels were discovered in several neighboring countries, increasing pressure for a ceasefire and for the introduction of IAEA inspectors for damage assessment. The United States, the United Nations, and Saudi Arabia all pressed early for a formal ceasefire, while the Saudis and the Russians attempted to take advantage of back channel approaches in order to end the war. The Saudis, however, were involved in a double game; they were attempting to facilitate a second Israeli strike in order to finish off previously damaged targets while they were publicly pursuing the cease fire. For their troubles, Simulation Control blew up a police station in Medina.
The restrained attitudes of both the United States and Iran led to domestic difficulties in both countries. In Iran, Mousavi and the Green movement attacked the Iranian government from the right, accusing the Ahmadinejad regime of failing to respond adequately to the Israeli attacks. State security organizations, however, managed to hold the protests in check. In the United States, the Obama administration came under immediate assault from the right for failing to sufficiently support Israel. However, the mutual policies of restraint helped both the US and Iranian teams keep a lid on the situation; with only limited provocation, it was easier for the teams to ignore domestic critics. Simulation Control attempted to ramp up the domestic tension with a series of twitter feeds, but this didn't work as well as hoped. It's worth noting that the Friday evening/Shabbos timing of the attack probably would have limited the mobilization of domestic opposition within the United States.
Israel was hampered by an increasingly troubled relationship with the US, and by the lack of sufficient "bunker buster" ordnance. Eventually, at around 7:15 am on Saturday, they ordered a second strike, in spite of US refusals of in-flight refueling, replacement ordnance, and access to Iraqi airspace. This led to a dramatic confrontation with the United States over Iraq, with US SAMs eventually targeting and shooting down an Israeli F-16. Shortly after this took place, we called the simulation.
Evaluation:
This was the most intricate simulation that Patterson has run in several years, and it came off relatively well. As the purpose of the Patterson simulation is to place decision-making responsibility in the hands of tired, tense, ill-informed students, we made a decision long ago to sacrifice realism for drama. Obviously, a US shoot-down of an Israeli warplane is exceedingly unlikely to happen in the real world. Then again, the turn of events was very surprising to Simulation Control. To the extent that the simulation revealed anything of policy relevance, it suggested that a policy of restraint on the part of Iran could cause some serious strategic problems for Israel. Iran suffered substantial damage to its nuclear facilities and Air Force, but was generally perceived to have won a major diplomatic victory (although for reasons that were unclear to Simulation Control, relations with Russia soured). The United States also did relatively well; the US position in Iraq was not threatened, and there was no evident danger to the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf. Israel managed to cause some damage, but at the expense of serious tension with its major sponsor and a general perception of ineffectiveness.
For a more general take, see this article in the Kentucky Kernel.
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