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I'm sure throughout Israel, people will be tuning in to see British Prime Minister Brown address the Knesset. When President Bush spoke just over a month ago, it was widely watched and his speech was read throughout the nation. As the leaders of the civilized world come to a realization that you cannot negotiate with radical Islam -- then you know a storm is brewing.

When I spoke throughout the United States this past year, I pointed out the time line I'm watching. The key to when a strike very well could occur hinges on when the nuclear power plant in Bushehr is coming online. According to Russian nuclear agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko the reactor will be started this autumn. If this reactor in Iran is online and running...then Israel will not be able to destroy it without causing a huge fallout.

In 1981, when Begin destroyed the nuclear reactor in Iraq -- his reasoning to Ronald Reagan (according to Ronald Reagan Diaries) was the fact the reactor needed to be destroyed before they received plutonium from the French. Begin was extremely concerned of radiation being spread and the potential of it carrying into Baghdad.

When you understand that Israel wages war in a civilized manner against its enemies trying to minimize any friendly causalities -- then you understand its concern about causing a nuclear fallout by striking an operational nuclear power plant. So the key to when Israel will strike ... is how close are they to starting the reactor in Bushehr.

According to Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute, if Iran were to withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty and renounce the agreement with Russia, the Bushehr reactor could produce a quarter ton of plutonium per year, which Leventhal says is enough for at least 30 atomic bombs. - Source: Global Security.

When a nation is birthed out of the holocaust...it truly understands the evil it faces -- while the world is just starting to get it.

Until next time...

And Bush has just apparently thrown in the towel with Iran agreeing to negotiations on less than demanded terms.Bush is making all sorts of conciliatory noises. Either this is craven collapse or he is setting up Iran for a surprise. I hope it is the latter.

This war's history of feint and feint again then suck them in and crush them is such that I am even a little optimistic that he will take care of this particular piece of unfinished business before he leaves office. I am even beginning to think that First Fallujah might have been such an operation. Back off "lose nerve" then draw the Sadrists and allies thickly into that city to be dealt with in a compact mass at a time of our choosing.

Looking at in hindsight even Basra went that way. The British kind of got "cold feet" and backed out, then came back a while later and not only took it back but finished off a large Sadr-Iranian force that had flooded into Basra while the Brits were biding outside. Perhaps the "surge" was not the correction of a situation that had been allowed to deteriorate at all but just the next step of the operation after a maximum number of AQ and Sadr/Iranians had been allowed to concentrate. Am I maybe right? or am I just trying to make a successful but haphazard operation look planned?

I think that you are mistaken about a few things:

-Wasn’t the 1981 Osirak bombing pretty widely condemned at the time, even by the US and the UN? See UNSC 487 for details.

-Don’t fool yourself. There is nothing “civilised” about the manner in which Israel engages its enemies. There cannot POSSIBLY be...It seems pretty obvious to most people that Israel wages war in whichever manner they feel is appropriate at the time. They have never had much of a choice in the matter.

-If Iran were to withdraw from the NNPT, they’d be complete and utter IDIOTS. The NNPT is what gives them the sovereign and inalienable right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. They will not contravene the agreement because it protects THEIR interests, not OURS and so they will use it to justify whatever activities they wish.

This is not 1981, and Iran today is not the Iraq of three decades ago. Any attack would be disastrous for everyone involved - economically, diplomatically, militarily. An attack from Israel would turn EVERY Arab nation against the US - it would be seen as another part of the ongoing asymmetrical conflict and proxy war. Even Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates would not turn a blind eye if this happens. Sunni and Shi’ite would be united for the first time since the 1970s and THEIR sanctions would hurt us far worse than ours could hurt them...