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Would you care to point out which two or three or four targets can be eliminated by Israeli nukes in order to achieve "checkmate"?..........Polybius

Abadan N30°21' E48°17' Abu Musa Island N25°52' E55°01' Aliabad N34°47' ?E51°05' Arak N34°05' E49°41' Bandar Abbas N27°11' E56°16' Bonab N38°25' E45°54' Bushehr 28°51'N 50°53'E Chalus N36°40' E51°25' Damghan N36°10' E54°20' Darkhovin N30°45' E48°24' Dorud ?N36°00' ?E51°29' Esfahan N32°40' E51°40' Esteghlal ---- ---- Fasa N28°56' E53°38' Gamsar ?N35°40' ?E51°45' Gostaresh N35°28' E48°53' Hama N??°??' E??°??' Islaker N??°??' E??°??' Karaj N35°50' E51°00' Khorramabad N33°28' E48°21' Kukh-e-Barjamali N35°39' E51°39' Lavizan N35°46' E51°29' Maghdad N??°??' E??°??' Tabriz N38°05' E46°15' Tehran N35°40' E51°25' .........For Starters...........garbageseeker

That is exactly my point.

Two or three or four Israeli nuclear strikes WILL NOT achieve an Iranian "checkmate".

Such an Iranian "checkmate" would require Israel to unleash a nuclear Armageddon. ......For starters, as you said.

(At which point, it should not surprise anybody if a Russian nuclear strike on Israel results in the last four mushroom clouds of that Sampson Option scenario.)

Thus, my analogy of using a chainsaw for a heart transplant: Extremely loud and dramatic (not to mention deadly) but not the appropriate tool for the job.

The feasible alternative is a U.S. conventional air war that has, time and again since the Gulf War, proven capable of hitting enemy architectual targets, at will, for week after week, as long as it takes, with pin point accuracy, with minimal U.S. casualties while the enemy watches helplessly on CNN.

Israel would have to rely on nukes because she doesn't have the ability to launch a sustained aerial attack on Iran from such a distance. She doesn't have the ability to deliver conventional bunker busters again and again, as many times as necessary. She would have to do it with relatively small weapons that could be delivered by fighter-bombers, or individual missiles, so each weapon would have to pack a punch.

The only one who could take down Iran and do it without resorting to nukes, is the US. We are the ones with the carrier groups off the Iranian coast, we are the ones who can unilaterally close the straits of Hormuz to Iranian traffic, we are the ones who can protect non-Iranian traffic to keep the oil flowing, we are the ones who can sustain a continuous assault for as long as it takes, from bases just over the border on all sides.

We keep hoping Israel will do it and take the political hit, but if they do it, we'll be blamed anyway, because everyone will know they couldn't do it without our complicity or active support.

Its going to take a layered strategy. Our guys in Iraq will be particularly vulnerable to retaliation, so we'll have to be prepared for either the insurgency to go off the richter scale, or else a full ground assault. It could be handled, but we'd have to be expecting it and ready. We'd have to be ready for increased efforts to smuggle bombs into American harbors. We'd have to be ready to support anti-government rebellions in Iran, and that means our full-on assault on nuclear sites would have to be accompanied by an attempt to annihilate the Revolutionary Guard, and the clerical leadership, and the circle around Ahmadinejad.

Even we don't have the forces to occupy Iran, so we'll have to be ready with an alternate plan, maybe Northern Alliance-style contacts with forces inside the country, and that takes time to establish when they don't exist.

It would be nice to pass this off on Israel, but its the kind of job our forces are designed for. And the retaliation is going to be aimed at both of us no matter what.

Before we turn the military loose on them, though, we should at least make the effort to organize an Orange Revolution kind of overthrow, and be ready in the wings if that devolves into a revolution. Its complicated, but its better than full-scale warfare if it can be done. After all, we don't worry about an India with nukes, because they are ruled by sane people. We worry about Ahmadinejad with nukes, because he's insane. Taking him down may be easier than the kind of war we're contemplating. But we'd better be ready for full-on war, because if easy doesn't work, hard is next like it or not.