PURDUE NUCLEAR STRATEGY EXPERT: BOMB IRAN NOW

We've only cited Purdue nuclear strategy guru Louis Rene Beres a couple of times: once to defend Olmert's accidental-but-not-really nuclear disclosure and once to explain why a nuclear Iran makes nuclear war inevitable - even and especially if Israel tried to signal that it was backing down. Nonetheless, he's undoubtedly one of the preeminent theorists of nuclear strategy and international proliferation diplomacy, having run dozens of scenarios and war games from multiple methodologies. And he says that we have to bomb Iran right now:

Iran's latest defiance of the [IAEA] says it all: Further diplomacy has no chance of stopping Iran's nuclear program. Neither will UN sanctions have any effect. Unless there is a timely defensive first strike at pertinent elements of Iran's expanding nuclear infrastructures, it will acquire nuclear weapons. The consequences would be intolerable and unprecedented.... Iran must be stopped immediately... and this can only be accomplished through "anticipatory self-defense."... A nuclear Iran would not resemble any other nuclear power. There could be no stable "balance of terror" involving that Islamic Republic.... a world with a nuclear-armed Iran could explode at any moment.

This is a rare, genuine recommendation that you read the whole thing. We know that you know that we don't push articles on you just because they're red meat. This article, though very short, has lots more analysis about the potential costs and benefits of preemption. It also has one of the clearest explanations we've read for why Israeli preemption is justified under centuries of international law. So read the whole thing .

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]