Stingray24 wrote:
Or . . . .
Israel successfully takes out Iran's nuclear facility and, knowing the US will back Israel, Iran does nothing.
Or . . .
America continues to support Israel and helps them wipe Ahmadinejad and his merry band of nutjobs off the earth.
Or . . .
IsraeL uses nukes first. Mushroom cloud. Iran has no nukes. Russia will not nuke Israel. Israel +1
Or . . . (best solution)
Ahmadinejad dies by a medical condition called specops-doubletap-to-headitis.
There's no way that Israel could launch a conventional strike against Iran. Lots of people point to the destruction of the Osirak facility in Iraq without noting that the facility in question was above ground for all to see and attacking it pushed Israel's capabilities to their limits, almost causing mission failure. Iran's facilities are well hidden and guarded by a modern, Russian-supplied air defense system, Iran's terrain is mountainous (which works well for defense), and the distance Israel would have to traverse to accomplish this task ranges from slightly less than to almost 3 times that of the Osirak operation (depending on the facility, remember, Iran has several known facilities and who knows how many unknown).
Israel really has no pretext to attack Iran (terrorism isn't enough and we've already covered the operational issues for an airstrike, ground invasion would be infinitely harder even with US logistical support). Considering the time Israel had with trying to "teach the Lebanese a lesson" I doubt they would fare much better against an actual competent functioning military. I do also recall that Iraq was supposed to be a "cakewalk", the Iraqis would support the glorious intervention by the US, and all forces would be out of the country in 6 mos. Iran is 3.7x larger than Iraq by land area and 2.3x by population. Israel wouldn't be able to do it (again even with US support and the use of nukes, which is a different issue altogether).
Finally, simply put, if Israel initiates a nuclear first strike against Iran, Israel will end. Even the US wouldn't be able to stop the backlash of such an action.
The Israeli military, while certainly more than competent, is not some kind of super army (as the recent debacle in Lebanon should more than prove). One question, if Israel has these kinds of super capabilities, then why has it not already carried out attacks on Iran or even Syria?