Cornered

"One thing the Lebanon conflict has done is to clarify the matter of the Iranian bomb. The reasonable belief that Iran could somehow be made to abandon its nuclear program through economic penalties and/or incentives is gone now. Iran may have provoked this conflict to block attempts at a settlement. In any case, at this point, Iran has got to see itself in a kind of extended cold/hot war with the United States, Israel, and even some of its Sunni neighbors. On the one hand, Iran is cooking up dreams of regional domination, which a bomb would be necessary to secure. On the other hand, with so many enemies alerted and pressing, Iran's regime has got to fear for its survival. A bomb is also a solution to that problem (from Iran's point of view). Given the stakes, no strictly economic carrots or sticks will work. (Well, a total oil/economic boycott might work, but that will never be imposed.) So either we destroy Iran's nuclear program by force, or Iran is going to get the bomb, likely provoking nuclear proliferation throughout the region." Stanley Kurtz, NRO's The Corner.

One of the reasons I don't peek into The Corner as much as I once did, is outside of filling us all in on Supreme Court Justice nominees, the "writers" there have agenda's and generate absolute nonsense disguised as words of wisdom.

Iran, as well as many other Arabs (yes, genetically that's what they are so stop the Persian nonsense) needed to see what military capabilities Israel has, and how it plans to use them. The few Iranian Generals with common sense are fully aware that their old Russian gear doesn't have a chance of standing up to Israel, and for one very good reason. In 10 years of war all they could do was fight Iran to a stalemate, and we went through Saddam's best like a hot knife through warm butter. The Israeli tanks aren't as good as our Abrahms, but close enough, and it does appear that the Jews are being smart in not showing what they're holding until it's time to call the mullah's bluff.

Iran has ALWAYS wanted total domination of the region, so this is not news. But, since the late 40's the Jews have gotten in the way, and it's interesting to note that many of the Arab states aren't condeming Israel as vociferously as they once would have. The Iranians can't attack Iraq anymore, so making like they want the "bomb" is enough to drive everyone stark raving mad, EXCEPT for those who remain calm with the knowledge that neither the Jews nor the US will allow such a thing to happen. Taking careful stock of what Israel can and cannot do is a smart move. But Israel has countered with conducting a limited war, and since attrition is on their side it's now Iran's turn to take something of a next step.

But they cannot. Not overtly, and overtly is what would be needed to protect the Hezzies, so they are stuck on stupid and will most likely remain that way as they await intervention from the UN to save as many Hezzies as possible by demanding an Israeli ceasefire. Israel went in, and the Kofi-Klatsch was helpless to drive them out, so they look towards their longstanding allies...the liberals of the world...to keep up the pressure for an Israeli withdrawal.

This isn't looking so good, either. The smart move, would be for the Iranians to join the rest of the world's idiots in demanding a fair and just withdrawal, conceeding that Hezz was out of line, maybe a little, and offering to help in containing them. To come out of this looking like the bad guys, PLUS learning little or nothing new about what the Jews can do, would be about the dumbest thing Iran could do.

Yes, fella's your worst fears are probably true. Israel's OWN delivery capabilities might make aircraft obsolete in this case, and goodbye nuke plant. You pushed Hezzbolah into attacking the Jews, and still want to create your own nuclear facilities, but if you don't show something of an olive branch even the Euro's will soon get wise.