<p>Recently, neo-conservative analyst Daniel Pipes wrote an article ("Can the IAF take out Iran's nukes?", June 13) that, in essence, advocates for the Jewish state to carry out pre-emptive military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.</p>
<p>Although Pipes has many justifications for his reasoning, this time he specifically alludes to the recently published article in International Security entitled “Osirak Redux” by security scholars Whitney Raas and Austin Long. Now Pipes makes it clear that Raas and Long do not take into account the diplomatic, strategic, and political fallout of such an action, but only focus on the question of “Can it be done”? To Pipes, the answer is a resounding “yes”, however, for those who too often take the Middle Eastern analysis of western academics as gospel, I would urge you to carefully read Raas and Long before forming any definitive conclusions. In rehashing “Osirak Redux”, Pipes clearly cherry picks certain points that the article makes that support his assertion that bombing Iranian nuclear facilities is the only method of keeping the Islamic Republic from attaining nuclear weapons. Yet he also manages to maneuver around critical points that the authors make that undermine the neo-conservative mantra that Pipes so eagerly defends.</p>