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<blockquote data-quote="soberups" data-source="post: 949709" data-attributes="member: 14668">Iran is not enough of a threat to the United States to justify any sort of a pre-emptive attack.Iran is enough of a threat to Israel for Israel to justify a pre-emptive attack.The question is what level of involvement...if any...should the United States have in an Israeli strike on Iran.We have long-range bombers, stealth aircraft, and bunker-buster bombs that can destroy hardened underground targets. We also have aircraft carriers and access to air bases in Iraq and Saudi Arabia from which to launch strikes.Israel has none of these things. They will have to overfly hostile airspace with aircraft that are incapable of getting to Iran and back without refueling. They have no bunker buster bombs, so the only way for them to decisively destroy the underground Iranian nuclear facilities is to use low-yield tactical nuclear warheads of their own. Israel is believed to possess between 200 and 300 such weapons, based upon estimates of the plutonium output of their Dimona reactor.My personal opinion is that the &quot;least worst&quot; option would be for us to sell or loan Israel the weaponry it needs to do the job itself with conventional weapons and without our involvement. I would also like to see the Arab nations that are so strongly advocating a strike on Iran to put up or shut up and be willing to (a) commit their own forces to the attack and/or (b) swallow their hate and agree to permit Israeli overflights of their airspace and/or&nbsp; access to airbases from which to refuel during such an attack. The Arabs are secretly rooting for an Israeli attack anyway, they need to quit chering and start contributing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="soberups, post: 949709, member: 14668"] Iran is [B]not[/B] enough of a threat to the United States to justify any sort of a pre-emptive attack. Iran [B]is [/B]enough of a threat to Israel for [I]Israel[/I] to justify a pre-emptive attack. The question is what level of involvement...if any...should the United States have in an Israeli strike on Iran. We have long-range bombers, stealth aircraft, and bunker-buster bombs that can destroy hardened underground targets. We also have aircraft carriers and access to air bases in Iraq and Saudi Arabia from which to launch strikes. Israel has none of these things. They will have to overfly hostile airspace with aircraft that are incapable of getting to Iran and back without refueling. They have no bunker buster bombs, so the [I]only[/I] way for them to decisively destroy the underground Iranian nuclear facilities is to use low-yield tactical nuclear warheads of their own. Israel is believed to possess between 200 and 300 such weapons, based upon estimates of the plutonium output of their Dimona reactor. My personal opinion is that the "least worst" option would be for us to sell or loan Israel the weaponry it needs to do the job itself [I]with[/I] conventional weapons and [I]without[/I] our involvement. I would also like to see the Arab nations that are so strongly advocating a strike on Iran to put up or shut up and be willing to (a) commit their [I]own[/I] forces to the attack and/or (b) swallow their hate and agree to permit Israeli overflights of their airspace and/or access to airbases from which to refuel during such an attack. The Arabs are secretly rooting for an Israeli attack anyway, they need to quit chering and start contributing. [/QUOTE]

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