1. lignaeus said:

Now imagine John Kerry in the White House.

2. Yuri Guri said:

"On June 7, 1981, Israel executed a spectacular attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility, successfully destroying Iraq's ambitions for attaining nuclear weaponry."

The attack did not destroy Iraq's ambition for a nuclear weapon, in fact, it was immediately after the attack that the nuclear scientist Husayn Shahristani was released from his prison/torture-cell and the Iraqis began their crash program, almost succeeding before the first Gulf War. Before the Israeli attack Saddam had gutted his own nuclear program by torturing and killing his best scientists, afterwards he gave them billions and made them into national heroes. The attack made an Iraqi bomb more likely, not less. Besides, even if the Osiraq/Tuwaitha reactor had continued to exist, the Iraqis simply would not have been able to divert enough fissile material to justify attacking it (Dan Reiter wrote a good article on this).

Menachem Begin's government was one of the most reckless in the history of Israel, and both the Osiraq bombing and the Lebanon War were debacles. Sharon was there, he is aware of that, and he won't repeat the mistake. Iran will not be attacked.

I mean, seriously, even Daniel Pipes is saying that Israel can't destroy the Iranian program (although he is a lot more optimistic about America's chances than I would be).

3. BobW said:

Shalom Yuri,

You've brought up some good points usually neglected.

Let's not forget Canadian engineer Gerald Bull was killed in 1990, nearly a decade after Osirak. He was developing a "super gun" for Iraq.

I don't believe the most critical aspect (using a micrometer to say this) is Iran's nuclear program. Teheran announced plans to run a bourse, a commodies market limited to oil, similiar to the New York Mercantile Exchange and London's counterpart. This is more time-sensitive than Iran's production of nuclear ordnance. In a split second emergency, American target acquisition could include Teheran's central business district and all its oil terminals. As drastic as this would be to the US economy, the US could carry on whereas the EU and Middle East would be in trouble.

Let's remember why the Bush administration refuses to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR) to drilling. Some say that ANWR and the adjoining Canadian national parks, Ivvavik National Park and Vuntut National Park, have an oil reservoir the size of Kuwait's. (Have any Canadian IsraPundit participants ever go on a park picnic at these places?)

Time to return to the Begin Lebanon events for reevaluation. You did, indeed, bring up some good, but neglected, points.

Kol tuv,
BobW

4. Anthony said:

Hey, Yuri. Good shooting, however:

Destroing reactor at Osirak, pushed back timing of Irak's nuclear programm considerably.
The programm has not been destroyed, the ability was imperilled. It took six years for Saddam to get back to sort-of-track, and never really fully.

Remember the say about the bird in the hands and ... What was it in the sky?