The Consequences Of Delay

Vis-a-vie Iranian nukes, putting the Israelis in a strategic vice:

“The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations .

“They’re also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there’s no telling what impact it could have on the election.”…

“An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy,” said Mr Bolton, who was Mr Bush’s ambassador to the UN from 2005 to 2006.

“With McCain they might still be looking at a delay. Given that time is on Iran’s side, I think the argument for military action is sooner rather than later absent some other development.”

This situation is a lot less complicated than AP seems to think it is.  The bottom line from Israel's perspective is they should not have to be the ones who undertake this mission; we should already have done it years ago, whether by engineering the overthrow of the mullahgarchy from within pre-OIF, or via a massive Iraq-style ground invasion to remove the mullahgarchy after Iraq was liberated.  Instead we chickened out, hid behind the striped pants brigade, and now the Iranians are on the offensive, closing in on nuclear weapons capability (or actually in possession of it), and the Jews - both a lot closer to the enemy than we are and their #1 target - are rapidly reaching the point of having to choose between a bad choice and a worse one.

Given the above, the timing of an IAF attack on Iran's nuclear installations is simplicity itself: the sooner the better.  If they strike now they know they have an ally in the Bush Administration that will, quietly, provide whatever non-belligerent assistance it can to maximize the attack's effectiveness.  Waiting serves no purpose; if they're concerned about affecting our presidential election, the logic argues for attacking now, not in the fall or winter.  Certainly not after Lucifer has taken office and transfers his policy flag from Jerusalem to Tehran.  And most to the point, not providing the mullahs with four or six or nine extra months to hit atomic paydirt - particularly when they may do so in as little as two.

As to Iranian retaliation scenarios, c'mon, do you really think the Israelis are - or that we should be - sweating that?  No conceivable counter-strike could be worse than the unprovoked nuclear attack the Israelis - and we - can expect if we sit back and do nothing.  And it would provide newly minted President Hussein with a baptism of fire that would either force him to confront the world as it really is and deal with it accordingly, or expose him for the traitor HE really is and destroy his presidency in its crib.

We have to remember: Iran is already at war with us.  Just ask our troops in Iraq.  All we'd be doing is finishing it - before they can finish us.  If it takes the Jews to finally push us off the untenable schied, so be it.