Posted on 03/27/2010 6:26:42 AM PDT by Fennie
Deeply concerned as it is by the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran, Israel has never even hinted at using atomic weapons to forestall the perceived threat.
But now a respected Washington thinktank has said that low-radioactive yield "tactical" nuclear warheads would be one way for the Israelis to destroy Iranian uranium enrichment plants in remote, dug-in fortifications.
(Excerpt) Read more at israelinsider.ning.com ...
As far as I am concerned, use of nukes is what is needed for Iran. Their entire leadership needs to be taken out.
When the time comes, even the Dems will vote to impeach.
Israel needs to invade 78% of Jewish American voters too!
Couldn’t the Israelis send in commandos or special agents to plant small tactical nukes inside these facilities and then detonate them deep underground? Just a thought.
If the US withholds bunkerbusters, the Israelis will soon figure out how to build their own. That is, if they have not already done so.
Is the US the only place that Israel can get bunker busters?
The bunker busters in question are also puny as bunker busters go. I think a lot smaller in yield than a tactical nuke would be, though if anyone has the dope on this please tell us.
Sometimes Jews can be suicidally stupid.
We need to save all or ours for Congress.
That’s probably right. Anytime Israel needs a new munition, they seem to come up with it...
Why does it matter what weapon is used as long as the end result is the same.
In June 2008, the United Kingdom revealed that its forces had used thermobaric munitions in Afghanistan. These weapons were delivered with the Hellfire missile from Apache attack helicopters. In September 2007 Russia successfully exploded the largest vacuum bomb ever made, leveling a multi-story block of apartment buildings with a power reportedly greater than that of the smallest dial-a-yield nuclear weapons at their lowest settings
Some busters can exceed the low end of the dial-a-yield nukes, but the particular busters in question (the ones that Obama is holding up delivering to Israel) were IIRC low on the range of buster power.
The question the Israelis need to ack themselves is: would the world after a nuclear attack on Iran be worse than a world with a nuclear-armed Iran? If the answer to that question is clearly no, then they must attack.
"The politcal and diplomatic implications would be huge.", quoth Obviousman, but maybe not entirely negative. The effect on any other country seeking to develop nuclear weapons would be profound. Since the development of nuclear weapons requires years of lead time, the plans would leak and in this interval they would vulnerable to preemptive nuclear attack.
Hopefully a few dozen of Israels nukes, (if they exist...) will end up dropped on jordan and syria while en route to iran.
If they are neutralizing threats, might as well take out those in their back yard as well.
In part public preception, in part because there is, in fact, a distinction between chemical and nuclear weapons. The spectrum of nuclear weapons extends futher to the right, to very high yeild devices. There may be some chemical weapons with higher yeilds than nuclear weapons, but destructive potential nuclear weapons vastly exceeds that of chemical.
Once you cross the Rubicon, there is no turning back. If Israel uses nuclear weapons on Iran and survives, expect India and Pakistan to go next.
Note especially the first name of one of the co-authors, Abdullah.
As is typical for Reuters, this story is all sizzle and no meat, unless you want to count the red meat in the lead thrown to the hyenas for their predictable reaction, as is evident right here on this thread.
Israel is not brimming with nutsos who are bent on self-destruction as, apparently, some on this forum are. If anything, the Israeli leadership would like to keep their most strategic weapons in reserve for when they are really, really needed some decades from now when the whole da*n world has nukes, not just the major powers plus Pakistan.
Besides, why would a small country with limited resources want to take such a huge risk when there's a good possibility that the World's Policeman will do the job?
Nukes are the best Idea why risk lives on a nice guy type precision strike.
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