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A new report suggests a previously unexplored method with which Israel could strike Iran's key nuclear weapons sites: ballistic missiles.

Abdullah Toukan of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies authored the report along with foreign affairs veteran and fellow CSIS expert Anthony H. Cordesman.

They explain that there are three possible flight routes for the Israeli Air Force to carry out the attack, and all three pose high political or operational risks -- in some cases both.

"All of this can somewhat be avoided if ballistic missiles are used to carry out the mission," the authors state. "Israel has this capability and Iran does not have a Ballistic Missile Defense System, such as the Russian S-300PMU2 'Favorit,' that was designed to intercept ballistic missiles as well as combat aircraft."

Iran has reportedly been negotiating with Russia to purchase the S-300 line of air defenses. The Jewish State asked Cordesman if that would prevent Israel from having the capability to strike Iran with ballistic missiles.

"The answer is no," Cordesman said. "But you need to understand when you talk about this, people are talking about a family of different systems -- which includes a more advanced system call the S-400 -- and that none of these reports make any sense because none of them define what Russian system would be sold, when it would be sold, in what numbers, how it would need to be deployed, how soon they'd actually bring it online."

If Iran attempted to obtain higher level air defense systems, such as the S-400, Cordesman said Israel could respond with countermeasures, and there are too many unknowns to say for sure whether Iran could outmaneuver Israel's missile systems.

"But Israel certainly has the technology to modify its warheads, and it would be technological duel in the best circumstances for Iran," he said.

The report states that Israel must consider the "damage probability" of the strikes, and what it would take to destroy or badly damage the Iranian nuclear program using Jericho III missiles.

"If the Jericho III is fully developed and its accuracy (CEP) is quite high then this scenario could look much more feasible than using combat aircraft," the authors write.

But, the authors caution, "The danger though would be for countries like Jordan that will be in ground zero if a ballistic missile exchange takes place between Israel and Iran, and possibly escalating to the use of WMD warheads."

According to the report, Iran's air defense system is outdated, and would pose little threat to Israel's aircraft. However, the authors note that Iran is rumored to have obtained from Russia the ANTEY-2500 Mobile SAM System/S-300V (SA-12 Giant). If that is the case, the author's concede, the ballistic missile option becomes more desirable.

"The attrition rates of the Israeli air strike will be high, could go up to 20 to 30 percent," according to the report. The attrition rate is the rate at which Israeli planes would be lost in the course of the mission. "For a strike mission of some 90 aircraft, the attrition could then be between 20 to 30 aircraft. A loss Israel would hardly accept in paying."

America's trump card: the F-22

The planes that would be used by the Israeli Air Force would be F-15s and F-16s. They would need in-flight refueling from airborne tankers, and could be detected by an updated air defense system, should Iran acquire one.

But the F-22, a top-flight U.S. fighter jet, could neutralize updated S-300 air defense systems, according to Thomas Crimmins of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Currently, the U.S. cannot legally sell the F-22 to Israel, but Crimmins suggests, in a paper he released March 13, that the U.S. should deploy its own F-22s to its bases in the Persian Gulf. This, he argues, would buy more time for negotiations with Iran, since the F-22s could strike Iran's nuclear installations quickly and with devastating results.

"Although the F-15s and F-16s already deployed to the region are more than capable for the current counterinsurgency fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, they would not be able to threaten Iran's nuclear infrastructure were the Islamic Republic to be armed with the S-300," Crimmins wrote. "As Ambassador Nancy Soderberg pointed out recently... the United States 'ha[s] lost the ability to scare' its adversaries in the region. Forward deployment of the F-22 could restore the credibility of the military option by indicating that it remains alive, and might even cause the Russians to reconsider the sale of S-300s to Iran."

Strategically, the U.S. can regain a lost deterrence by simply stationing the planes in the Gulf, Crimmins concludes.

"Military deployments and arms transfers have long been used by the United States to reassure nervous allies and to forestall undesirable actions," Crimmins writes. "In keeping with this tradition, the United States should consider the forward deployment of the F-22 as a means of signaling its resolve on the Iranian nuclear issue."

Environmental fallout

Another consideration is the environmental damage that could be done by an Israeli strike on a nuclear facility. Toukan and Cordesman write that an attack on the Bushehr nuclear reactor would release radionuclides into the air, "heavily" affecting Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

"Any strike on the Bushehr nuclear reactor will cause the immediate death of thousands of people living in or adjacent to the site, and thousands of subsequent cancer deaths or even up to hundreds of thousands depending on the population density along the contamination plume," the authors warn.

Iodine-131, strontium-90, cesium-137, and plutonium-239 have been identified, according to the report, as the radionuclides most damaging to human health. While iodine-131 has an effective half life of about a week, plutonium-239 has an effective half life of 500 days in the lungs and 198 years in the bones.

The Iranian response

Iran would be expected to respond with its own missiles from Iran or from its Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon. Iran may choose to respond with weapons of mass destruction.

Israel's Arrow 2 batteries, the most up-to-date deployed version of the collaborative Israeli-U.S. Arrow Weapon System, are located in Tel-Aviv and in the north, according to the authors, with more Arrow battery deployments in the north expected. The Arrow 2 interceptor missile is equipped with infra-red and active radar sensors, as well as a blast fragmentation warhead, according to the report.

In 2007, the report notes, Israel conducted its first flight tests of the Arrow 3 interceptor missile.

"The upgraded missile is designed to intercept target missiles at higher altitudes and longer ranges, so that the debris from possible nuclear, biological, and chemical warheads will fall farther away from Israeli territory," the authors write. "In addition, the tests also employed the improved Green Pine radar with higher resolution for the purpose of identifying decoys and other penetration aids that Iran is assumed to have developed for the purpose of defeating missile defenses."

Israel is developing the Iron Dome to counter Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets, and the U.S. and Israel are co-developing David's Sling to counter Hezbollah's Fajr and Zelzal ballistic missiles.

The authors also expect Iran to respond by launching its Shahab-3 missiles against Tel-Aviv and other Israeli population and military targets and suspected nuclear sites; fund suicide bombings by Hamas and Hezbollah; upgrade Taliban capabilities in Afghanistan; increase the threat of retaliatory attacks against Gulf countries that host U.S. military bases, such as Qatar and Bahrain; and disrupt oil shipping lanes in the Gulf.

The authors note that while Syria may assist proxy terror groups, an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would not likely cause a direct response from Syria.

"Syria knows very well that alone, it's military forces are no match to Israel," they write.