I,too, don't hold my breath for that timetable saying 4-7 months, but we also do not talk about an big ammount of coming years. Iran has significantly increased the speed at which it installed new centrifuges and and enriches uranium - much more than anybody admitted would be imaginable just two years ago. Back then the talk was about 10-15 years. Due to the increased attempt by Iran, it'S not like that anymore. I also do not think the Israelis are just bluffing. Any other people, but not the one having faced genocide and holocaust and still having a living memeory of that. So timetables yes or not, the general direction the author points at probably is the future that is likely to come. The man, btw, is a controversial figure, on the other he hand has been a major figure in uncovering the Israeli cheating in house- and settlement-building in violation of agreements with the Palestinians.

I fear the timescales are much shorter than at first predicted.

This is 'do or die' time for the Israelis.....to do nothing, the potential consequences are totally innaceptable for them....a pre-emptive (non nuclear) strike is really the only viable option open to them.

Diplomacy has failed.

Survival is a great motivator.

What makes you believe a preemptive non-nuclear strike can do the job? That is very questionable, and would be followed by nulcear escalaion soorner or later, may it be the Israelis finishing the job before Iran gets a chance to get the bomb, or may it be the Iranians retaliating once they got the bomb, and the Israel retaliating as well. Both scenarios will set the ME on fire. Only a nuclear first strike has at least a chance to kill the program (you still need to know reasonable target coordinates, and that is where the problem is). Shutting it down in the first attempt still will mean a lot of conventional retaliation, and trouble in the ME, but I don'T see it burning as hot as if you risk a prolongued conflict that goes on and on and with not less people getting killed - maybe even more -, and nevertheless ending in a nuclear exchange the one way or the other. Israel - for very good reasons - will not accept a nuclear Iran, and Iran will not accept to give up the program. A balance of terror like in the cold war between two cold-calculating, reasonably thinking factions, will never work in the ME. Too much hysteria, too much missionizing attitudes, too much relgion involved, too much emotion, too much of everything that is bad and evil and has already lasted since long.

I really hope so.:roll:

So, are you advocating Israel make the pre-emptive strike a nuclear one to raise the chances of an effective end to the Iranian nuclear programme :hmm:

No , but to make any such chance even a minimally realistic one. because without nuclear strike on certain key facilities i do not see such a chance at all. I said that since over two years - even at a time when I myself also was too scared to even think about nukes, and said (two years ago) that using nukes is unacceptable,, always - like most of you guys. It's just that I saw myself in need to change my mind if I wanted to keep on having a realistic perspective on the issues, and not replacing it with fearing daydreams and wishful thinking in order to avoid thinking about the worst.

We had many threads about the issue, and I think I have made myself clear regarding what I consider to make sense, and what not. I also have repeatedly pointed out the same problems like the author of that essay has described: lacking coordinates, targets too hardened to be destructible by MOABs and bunker busters, etc. Strike Iran or don'T. But if you strike and want to really destroy certain key installations, chances are against you that you will achieve that conventionally. If you launch a war, you want it to be successful, and short, leaving Iran no chance to retaliate nuclear, not today and not in the future.

Stop dreaming about what conventional strikes can acchieve in this mess. This is a million times more complicated and difficult than Osiriak. willing a war, but at the same time not accepting to use nukes on the hardened key installations, is a contradiction in itself, shows a remarkable lack of insight into the difficult nature of this operation, and i would even call it some kind of schizophrenic. read that essay's argument and scenario development again - I agree with the author very much, and said exactly the same things since months.

That does not mean that I like it all. I don'T, but so far everybody has failed to show a REALISTIC alternative scenario that I could put trust into. One thing is crystal clear for me: a purely conventional strike will be in vain and only cause some delay, not more. That way, I would be against it, for it would cause a lot of killing and destruction and future conflict and retaliation. I would accept such a war only if it is designed by the intention to secure the destruction of the Iranian ambition to get nuclear weapons. And nthos goal is not be be achieved in a politically correct manner, or a "war light".

decide what you want, for the time to decide is running out. Stop dreaming, and hoping. For just hopes you get nothing.

Isn't it ironic that after the forum wars we had in past years about Iraq and Afghanistan, and me always attacking both wars, and first accepting and then turning totally against the Lebanon war - now i am again causing irritation by pointing at the only way a war with Iran could make sense?

you guys want the success of such an operation - but you shy away from paying the price for it: and the price is to get dirt on our hands. But only nothing comes at no cost.

Iran with nukes and the ME seeing a nuclear exchange sooner or later, or Iran not having nukes, but having suffered considerable damage. Don't run from making a decision anymore - but chose, and chose wisely.

I take your point and do subscribe to your reasoning.

What concerns me most though, is the fact that man has not resorted to atomic release since those used against Japan.

Since then atomic weapons have been successfully used as a deterrent by opposing nations in keeping a modicum of world stability (certainly in terms of preventing a worldwide conflict).

Nobody knows what level of escalation would result from supporters of both sides if atomic weapons were used....perhaps tactical/low yield would be acceptable.

Who can truthfully say they know for certain. :hmm:

I know one thing for sure, if only one of two opposing sides has nukes, there will be no nuclear exchange, and no need for nuclear threatening the other.

again: i am no nuclear trigger-happy, not at all. I do not like all this a bit. I hate it to propagate to use nuclear bunker-busters in the first strike. but nobody so far is able to outline realistic alternatives, only expressions of wishful hopes, and daydreaming. That is the problem that I have.

:yep:

I know what you're getting at jim, to a logical person it even makes sense - problem is though, there are way too many people in the world for whom a nuke is a nuke, be it 1 kiloton or 50 megatons. Once they're used, and their use "justified", we do run the risk of legitimising them.

Its a nasty bloody situation, damned if we (generic we) do nothing, and damned if we follow the most logical course of action... :doh:

Yes, that is a problem, but who seriously considers to live by just the good will of some terrorist groups anyway.

I would say we act by the rules of living organisms here who use to deal with multiple problems and challenges in the order of decending priorities: "what is more important goes first". Conventional Iranian missile retaliation, terror strikes and Hezbollha and Hamas and Arabs living in Israel damaging Israel, global oil prices, blocking the street of Hormuz, trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan - all that is of inferior priority compared to preventing Iran having nukes. So refusing Iranian nuclear facilities goes first. Everything else comes only at second, third, fourth place. Sorry I can't line out a method to evade all these consequences, but there is none. Let' prepare for them as best as we could, and then go right through it - since it is coming at us anyway, no matter if we like it or not. the more crisscrossing we add to the course, then longer we stay inside the heavy weather.

Instead of getting our own men killing being "prepared" why not raid them or nuke them? I mean, absolutely every Iranian, Hizbullah, or whoever has a gun even the children, so every one is at a risk already, what are we NOT risking?

The core of that line of logic has led to worse things than war.

So your prepared to gamble on setting off armageddon.

Right on Jim! When I had my military history class, there were some hotheads in there that wanted to nuke everybody, and they were serious!:roll: I guess they don't realize all that radiation doesn't stay in one place... Which way is the wind blowing?:dead:

Well, George W. Bush is probably too dopy to go down as the worst mass murderer in human history. :roll:

Nuking around like a lose gun certainly is not what has been on my mind. Nor is there a need for nuking cities, as far as I am aware, or nuking each and ever target that is available for conventional destruction.

Not that it makes any difference for those being dead afterwards.

Thank God you just can'T take any huge, hardened subterranean research compound and move it around at will and place it under Teheran - like Hezbollah use to do with it's facilities in order to provoke civilian casualties.

You guys do realize that men you've never even heard of rely on empty shelled morons like yourselfs to propagate their agendas?

A lot of Americans are too dumbed down by our culture to know any better when it comes to our "foreign policy" decisions.

Does your sensible description include those empty shelled morons who consider themselves to act responsibly and reasonably when allowing themselves to fall to propaganda saying that it all is harmless and we can safely let Iran have its nukes - or that it does not intend them anyway?

And possibly it will not be dumbed down America's decision wether to strike or not anyway - but Israel's.

Irrational sentiments and wishful thinking will not lead anyone anwhere in this. Let's keep it out. I agree that it all is no reason to shout hip-hip-hooray.