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]

NEW STUDY SAYS IAF COULD DESTROY IRANIAN NUKE FACILITIES

This Defense Tech post is one of the most heartening things we've read in a while. And it's about the inevitable eruption of war in the Middle East might not be all that bad. Thus does Middle East blogging proceed:

Some of the good folks at MIT have just figured how many bombs it would take for the Israeli Air Force to blow up Iran's entire nuclear weapons infrastructure. Apparently, it isn't so hard after all... But, according to the MIT report, there is one major catch: the air strike on Natanz could fail if Iran's air defenses succeed in downing only two of the IAF's strike package of 24 F-15Is if each is loaded with a single BLU-113. MIT concludes, however:... the IAF, after years of modernization, now possesses the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence.

The entire study is here (PDF warning). We haven't read over the whole thing, so we're not sure if it addresses the IFF issue. We also don't know if they assume that an Israeli strike might involve cruise missiles as well as air assets. If fighters get downed before they can drop their payload, one certainly assumes that Israel would launch cruise missiles to finish the job - it's try or die at that point. Here's what we don't get: if Israel can do it, then the US can certainly do it. And a US strike would have a higher probability of success (closer target, better tech, less logistical problems, etc). And it's not like Iranian nukes won't find their way into the heart of a US city eventually - the US doesn't have existential stakes in play, but they've certainly got a lot to lose. It just sounds like the US is hanging Israel out to dry because Iran has promised to nuke Israel first.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]