If somebody doesn’t stop Iran, Israel will have to, and the only option *they* have is nuclear – they don’t have the conventional ability to do the job.

And that means that we are going to do it. And we can likely to it without the tactical nukes. The big problem with tactical nukes is the fallout the would result from the required ground bursts – fallout that would kill lots and lots of people. The explosions themselves would be highly contained, but I know of no ground burst system that doesn’t produce a lot of fallout and loft it a ways into the atmostphere.

Also, the most well known sites are not deep in the rocks – they are buried under sand. They are vulnerable to conventional precision weapons, and we might also use SOF folks on the ground to finish the job. Furthermore, you can’t do much with something buried in a tunnel if someone (us) keeps blowing up the tunnel entrance.

As for Bush’s political position, it doesn’t matter. He (fortunately) understands the situation well enough to do it no matter what happens to him. He is a lame duck already, and he is a determined man who isn’t easily deterred.

………..

Finally, a technical correction:

It is asserted above that uranium (U-235) bombs do not need testing. That is sort of true but not in a relevant sense. The Hiroshima bomb was a very big thing. It used the “gun” design which is so simple it doesn’t need to be tested. But it uses a very large amount of U-235 – the most expensive and hard-to-get material in making a uranium bomb. Furthermore it’s size makes it unsuitable for missile launch.

Iran needs bombs that fit on missiles. And that means implosion bombs, whether uranium or plutonium. And that means testing.

The term was a bit of hyperbole, positioned besides the further hyperbole of giving them the bomb (in all caps).

I agree with you though. I don’t think that Bush has the support of the nation any longer. He’s allowed the nation to become more divided and allowed mistakes to become horrific blunders. With the problems in Iraq, the lack of Osama’s turbaned head and the internal political problems of the Republican party, it appears likely that come this fall, Republicans will (at least) lose their powerful majority status, and may even lose the House, Senate or both.

In this climate, Bush would be commiting political suicide if he attacked another Muslim nation… and if he did it pre-elections, then the Republicans losses would likely be assured. Post-election, I think Bush will have 2 years of bullshit impeachment attempts and gridlock… again not a situation where stopping Iran with force will be workable. By the time the next President comes to power, s/he’ll likely be too late to do anything about it.

Not a good situation at all… in fact, I think that some fundamentalist religious zealot getting nuclear weapons, has probably been the scariest Armegeddon scenario for 50 years.

I would bet that if you were able to look at the plans for attack on or by Iran, you would find probably 50 scenarios and this would be one of them. If you were then to hand these plans to the military leaders and ask them to rank them in the order of most likely to least likely, this one would be the least likely. Hersh has used this to try to make more money from his writing. As I said, the man is a total tool.

So besides either giving Iran the Bomb, or GIVING IRAN THE BOMB, our options are “Hit all major power stations in their country and destabilize their infrastructure (which, would probably upset a lot of people inside and outside Iran), or just accept that the government is deploying disinformation in hopes of making us all sheep a little safer (err, I mean sleep not sheep…)

Sounds like more supporting evidence for my solution

Iran is getting the bomb. All the talks about possible attacks are window dressing to ease the fears of those of us who agree with you that Iran getting the bomb is insane. It’s coming. Iran is banking on the fact that the west does not have the political will to make the hard choice and I think it is a safe bet.

A) Let Iran get nukes. I don’t think anyone in their right mind could accept this solution.

B) Use tactical Nukes to take out the bunker. I don’t think anyone in their right mind could accept this solution (since nuking, in any sense, a part of the Muslim world would likely turn into our most hellish nightmares).

In short, as far as I can tell, our best solution at this point, would be for us all to go stark raving mad, completely bonkers, nutty as Jimmy Carters farm and twice as full of sh*t.

As the man once said:

“Goodbye Blue Monday”

There are two choices. Let Iran have the bomb. Some form of military strike. If Iran was interested in stopping their nuke program they would have taken the incredibly generous economic bribe the U.S. and the big three of the E.U. gave them. It would have ended their economic downturn and ended their economic isolation. Their economy would have blossomed. They said no way, we want the bomb instead.They have no intention of stopping. Mullah Bomb or attack. Which choice is worse? Those are the only options. Everything else is self delusion.