Is a Box Even Needed?

I've noted that we should really think outside of the box on how Israel might strike Iran. I ridiculed our military for utterly failing to really think outside the box with our resource-rich way of thinking about waging war. But I've come to realize that my attempts to think outside the box are really just seeking a box shaped differently enough to send the package. What would truly thinking outside the box consist of?

Now this is thinking outside the box:

This leaves the Israelis with only one really dependable military option, and that is to take out Iran’s oil-export terminal on Kharg Island. This facility, which handles over 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports, is a very soft target. Because it consists of rows of huge, thin-walled oil tanks, it would require only a few hits by conventional bombs to turn the whole place into a massive inferno. Without the oil exports that pay for 65 percent of its national budget, the Iranian regime would go bankrupt. Not only its nuclear-bomb program, but the regime itself, would soon cease to exist.

There’s just one little problem: Such a strike would probably send world oil prices to at least $150 per barrel, thereby precipitating a worldwide economic crash. Millions of people on every continent, including this one, would lose their jobs.

Striking Kharg? That's throwing the idea of a box right out the window. That would be a lot easier military task, and lessen the likelihood that Israeli planes would go down over Iran and leave a pilot a prisoner.

Of course, this alternative assumes Israel can't pull off a successful strike on Iran's key nuclear infrastructure. I think they have a shot.

I wonder if such an attack on Kharg would really cause a lasting jump in oil prices given already weakened demand and the assumption that Iranian oil is already off the market.

Such a doomsday scenario would require Iran to successfully wreck regional oil export capabilities. Iran never did shut down the Persian Gulf in the 1980s nor did Iran succeed in shutting off Iraq's oil exports during their war that decade.

I also don't know if knocking out Kharg is as easy as the author says. Iraq, in the 1980s, despite many raids on Kharg Island, never managed to shut the oil export facility. And Kharg is close to Iraq.

Still, even if successful, Iran would repair the damage. Could it be shut down long enough to have an impact strong enough to affect the nuclear program? Well, maybe if Iran's economy really is teetering from sanctions:

Iran's economy is edging towards collapse due to international sanctions over its controversial nuclear program, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Sunday.

I've read stories to the contrary on the effectiveness question, given the exceptions to the sanctions and those who ignore them for a good price on oil. But if effective, that changes things, no?

Oh, and the article notes that Israel is really a 3-bomb state. If that matters. And the author says bombs can be made with 20% enriched Uranium that Iran already has rather than the much higher level we use. That definitely matters, and I did not know that.

But whatever the merits of a Kharg attack, that is seriously thinking outside the box. It doesn't even assume a box is needed.