Iran: A Prediction

If we go to war with Iran,
And If that war takes the form of a sustained air campaign directed against their nuclear facilities,
I offer the following prediction:

The effectiveness of our cruise missiles will be substantially impaired against high-priority targets such as air defense hubs, airfields, and the strategic objectives themselves (the nuke sites). This ineffectiveness will be due to local point defenses, such as the SA-15 (aka, Tor-M1), and to a lack of penetration of hardened targets. This ineffectiveness will also be limited by the Iranian military's resources and priorites; in other words, lower priority targets may not be well-defended and will be vulnerable to cruise missile attack.

The overall effect of this will be that manned aircraft will have to fly the sorties to take out high-priority targets early in the conflict, and that most targets eventually hit by cruise missiles will be those which could have been hit by a manned aircraft with little to no risk to the crew. Cruise missiles will not have fulfilled their strategic purpose.