There are conventional penetrators and also not all targets are deeply buried. Also, personnel can be targeted, weapons scientists and such. So Israel can retard the program. But only the US could bomb around the clock enough to really pound them.

Realists would be counseling assassinations of Ahmadinejad and the mullahs, sponsoring coups, etc.

If Baker and his pals were half as realist as they boast of being that is what they would suggest, preemptive nuclear war against Iran, since Iran is at war with us and has been for 27 years. But the part of the Baker-Hamilton Report saying that Iran and Syria have interests in seeing a stable Iraq proves that these guys were not realists, but living in cloudcuckooland.

What I am worried about is, Israel cannot drop enough of them, on enough targets, because they haven’t got thousands of planes like the US, and all the zillions of other assets that support the USAF. Tanking, for instance. Iranian missions are at the far edge of IDF AF’s (is there a better acronym?) range and involve a lot of hostile territory in between.

I have run the math before – Israel has a MARGINAL capability to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, and is likely to do only partial damage – which will help, which is worth doing, but which will not put an end to the problem – while sustaining significant casualties.

As “anonymous” said, if the Republicans did better in the last election, this report would have gone straight in the trash.

Ain somchin al hanes (do not depend on a miracle), but like Chizkiyau (Hezekiah) and Sancheruv there is only one “thing” we can rely on.

Do you propose to park an armored division in the Negev indefinitely? Does that seem consonant with all the current realities, including the one where Israel says, as they have before, no thank you?

What this is saying is that Israel had better smack those Iranian nuclear facilities themselves. And when it’s half-done, because Israel doesn’t have the limitless aerial force necessary to deliver a sustained pasting, well, I hope somebody will be happy about it.

So too with Israel, perhaps. A diplomatic arangement between American and Arab states that cut out the Israelis wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for Israel in the long term, though it would depend a LOT on the details.

Remember when Ariel Sharon declared that Israel would not be another Czechoslovakia, and drew a stinging rebuke from Bush? I don’t know what else may have been said behind the scenes, but Sharon was Bush’s lap dog from that point onward.

Don’t blame Baker or Condi; a fish always stinks from the head.

Not the most hopeful precedent, of course. Look how well that worked out for the Czechs.

And you felt free to effectively give him your vote?!? Do you give him a pass for the cartoon and the ‘Felix’ business? Well, if you like Pat Buchanan, you must love this guy. Eesh.

So Allen would be a nonentity. Oh no, much better to have a…whatever Webb is. What flaws could Allen possibly have to allow you to let that happen? Incest? Eating flesh torn from a living animal? I guess it’s not my place to ask, but…how could you?