The casual tone of many of the the "Attack Iran" conversations on this site are extremely disturbing, at least to me. The military option seems to me to be nowhere near "on the table" for many reasons. To begin with, Iran is larger than Western Europe, making it a much better missile target (for thousands of missiles) than an airplane objective, especially since Israel has no bases within range and would have to refuel over hostile airspace. Even if all the potential targets were known, it would be impossible to prevent immediate missile retaliation against Israel. Iran took a million KIA against Iraq and would not be passive in the face of even an overwhelming attack. In addition, many of the primary "nuclear" targets are underground and doubtless hardened to the point where a pinpoint nuclear attack would probably be the only option. The idea of a limited strike against nuclear plant targets only seems also a non-starter to me.
Any military action against Iran would have to be at the very least, on the scale of a Gulf War III. I sincerely hope Obama is not entertaining any thoughts of an October Surprise in Iran. I'm fairly certain the Israelis aren't.
There is also the usually unspoken issue of the Shiite mindset. Their theology calls for an Armageddon, in which the Earth is to be wiped clean by fire, so that Allah The All Wise can remake it as a Shiite Earthly Paradise, with no bad Muslims (i.e., non-Shiites,) and certainly no Infidels. Defeat does not matter. After all their highest holy day celebrates the loss of the Battle of Karbala and they march in the streets inflicting terrible wounds on themselves until the parade route runs with blood.
You ain't dealing with Presbyterian People from Peoria.
Thanks KB. The Iranians plan to strike first, but it will be against the US; the diplomatic and other manuevers going on right now are being done to hamstring our other enemies so they don’t dogpile on when the mullaholes try to shut off the oil and launch street level terror attacks here on US soil.