posted on May, 9 2004 @ 07:51 AM
Seekerof, first let me apologize for not seeing your first post about this - its more informative with its many links and I urge others to check it
out and read it.
I guess the only new news is this little tidbit from the article that I linked to,
"President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon discussed the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program during the latter's visit to the
White House on April 14."
I think the results from a raid using conventional precision weapons to strike selected targets, in the end could have a probability for Israeli
political success high enough for them to proceed.
That kind of raid on Irans facilities would require a multipronged attack on several sites simultainously and would denote an unprecedented ability on
Israel's part at HUMINT on the ground.
I'm sure the Iranian military would try to retaliate, and as long as it is conventional the Israeli's probably can counter it quite easily - thats
the point of the raid.
Publicly the Arab states would raise cane, privately the various governments would breath a sigh of relief, Syria being an exception. There is
historically no love lost between the Arabs and Persians.
Irans mullacracy is propped up by a police state apparatus with the population being mainly apathetic to their leaders political goals. The biggest
question at hand is would the Iranians see a raid like this as reason to rally round the mullacracy or would they see it as a sign of weakness and
failed policy by the mullacracy.
Many blog sites out of Iran are pointing to the latter possibility, If mossad has concrete info in regards to a counter-revolution then that would
seem to spur this raid forward.
A raid using un-conventional weapons although militarily successful would point to a lack of HUMINT and show desperation on Israels part. The world
condemnation I think would be so high as to negate this possibility alltogether unless the Israeli's could prove beyond a doubt that the Iranians
were organizing an imminent strike with WMD on Israel.
Even then the response could be so unpredictable that I can not begin to guess at the resulting situation.