Guest Post -- How urgent is it for Israel to militarily destroy Iran’s nuclear program?

From time to time, I am going to have posts from others than myself. Here is the first one, from Steve Brill.

A year ago it seemed that one way or another Iran’s nuclear program would be dealt with in 2010. While Israel seemed to be willing to give the U.S.
some time to engage in almost certain to fail diplomatic efforts, it repeated a number of times that there was a limited window and that Israel would have to act by the end of 2010 if nothing were accomplished diplomatically by the United States. The details of what Israel would do – undoubtedly through some kind of military action -- were obviously never disclosed and different sources stated the urgency somewhat differently. But the upshot was that 2010 could not end with Iran’s nuclear program proceeding apace.

In recent weeks, despite the end of the year approaching, discussion of the Iranian issue seemed to have waned. I thought that maybe Israel had been bluffing and knew all along that military action was not feasible, and that explained the silence. However, recent revelations of a worm that, according to the Jerusalem Post, damaged the Iranian computers and effectively set back Iran’s nuclear program by 2 years, suggests possibly a much happier explanation. There have been many references to a worm elsewhere, but the information here is quite specific. Hopefully it is also true. Whether Israel alone, Israel and the U.S. together or some other combination did this deed is less important that that it seems likely to have been successfully accomplished.

While this is not the kind of subject as to which we can expect to get the full story, the information in this article and elsewhere nevertheless gives hope that there is a possible way to effectively thwart Iran without a risky and potentially very dangerous military action, which may or may not be feasible even on a best case basis and could have catastrophic consequences. Let’s hope that 2011 brings more computer worms which eliminates the need for military action for even longer periods of time, and hopefully permanently. The consequences to Israel, the U.S. and the entire world would be hugely positive compared to the unhappy alternatives.