Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?
I do not believe any foreseeable government of Israel will allow Iran to get the bomb. Whether Israel takes military action or the United States does depends on how Iran proceeds. I am very sure President Limpwrist will never bomb Iran's nuclear weapons facilities, but in less than two years we may well have a president who would. One danger that is seldom discussed is that an Israeli attack might need to include nuclear weapons. It's far from clear that 5,000 lb. bombs, which are the largest conventional ones Israel could deliver, would make sure of the deeply buried centrifuge gallery at Fordoz. Of course Israel could confine an attack to, say, four other facilities that are very important to Iran's program, but destroying them might not cripple the weapons program for too long.
A lot of silly things have been written about how difficult and dangerous bombing Iran's nuclear weapons facilities would be, how we don't know where they are, and so on. That is somewhat true of an Israeli strike--with their smaller forces, it would be very difficult and uncertain, and it would certainly be limited to only the few most important targets. But as applied to this country's military, the recitals of all sorts of supposedly unimaginable difficulties and supposedly unthinkable risks sound to me like the excuses of alarmists and hand-wringers for doing nothing. The U.S. has the aircraft and the weapons to destroy every significant facility in not only Iran's nuclear program, but also its ballistic missile program and its air defense system, and to do the lion's share of all this in one fell swoop, and without any great risk to our servicemen.
And no matter how badly the regime in Tehran might want to retaliate, it does not have much capacity to do it. To deter them from trying, they might also be put on notice that any attempt at retaliation would be answered with still more attacks on all sorts of other military targets. They might not dare do anything, because they know very well that once Iran had lost its ability to defend its airspace, every bridge, tank, cannon, barracks, naval base, fuel depot, communications center, ammunition dump, etc. in it would be a sitting duck for bombers. That regime could not survive too much humiliation--the power of tyrants depends a lot on their prestige.