Iran's Nukes

Whispers have increased in recent weeks about a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. I've heard more mentions about one by Israel than one by the United States, but a strike by Israel has been complicated by Sharon's stroke and coma. There is also the problem concerning the range of Israel's aircraft -- they cannot fly to Iran and fly back to Israel. The potential use of a base in Kurdish northern Iraq has been mentioned, which I think would allow for a return flight. I don't know much about Israel's relationship with the Kurds, so I can't really comment on how plausible that is. They could use a U.S. airbase in northern Iraq, but locals work there, so it could be hard to hide Israeli aircraft. I'm also unsure of the number of aircraft necessary for the mission (four?) -- the more aircraft, the more complications, of course. The U.S., if it launched the strike, could use cruise missiles launched from their ships in the Persian Gulf (either just those cruise missiles or in conjunction with an air strike). Russia has agreed to sell Iran better air defense equipment, so the Israeli strike would have to come soon; an American strike would likely have a short timeframe as well. If a strike is coming, it would be likely by the end of March.

Also, despite the CIA's professed uncertainty about Iran's nuke program, it now appears that they were involved in giving the Iranians (faulty) nuke plans back in the 1990's. They didn't explain this well to the Russian scientist they used to give them the plans, he noticed the errors, and passed along to the Iranians that there were problems in the plans. So instead of their (already risky) plan to give the Iranians for a dud of an atomic bomb (it would explode and spread the nuclear material, but not result in a nuclear explosion), they helped the Iranians along. I really wish our intelligence services were a bit more competent.