Nuclear proliferation appears to becoming an unstoppable jugernaught. Obviously the best way to stop it is through the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). NPT was (and still is) a good idea. Under NPT, a developing country can have the economic advantages of nuclear technology but dosen't need to appear threatening to its neighbors. Unfortunately NPT is not working and will probably soon be abandoned. After NPT, the next best solution against nuclear proliferation is a surgical pre-emptive strike such as exercised by the Israelis against Saddam's Osirak reactor. However a pre-emptive strike is only an option if the offending state is being stupid in placing its nuclear assets in a non-hardened location, e.g. as Saddam did with the Osirak reactor. Unfortunately the mullahs aren't being stupid about hardening their nuclear assets. If we're to believe Debka and other sources, the Iranian nuclear assets are deep underground. The Iranians have excellent engineers (I trained with some of them at Stanford University). The Iranians also have ex-Soviet, North Korean, Pakistani and various Eurpean technical guys on the payroll (mercenaries). These Iranian nuclear facilities will not be some half-assed third world thing like the "pharmaceutical" factories in the Sudan. My guess is that only a penetrator nuke like a Pershing-2 would be effective in destroying them. Conventional bunker busters probably will not work. I don't think the Israelis have the military capability of destroying the Iranian nuclear facilities. The U.S. does have the raw military capability, However that capability would involve using tactical nukes which is politically unacceptable.

Anyway this brings me back to how is nuclear proliferation going to be stopped? I fear that at some high level, it has been decided to: "make an example out of someone". Specifically, allow one nation to cross the line and do something extremely stupid like nuke Tel Aviv and then reduce the offending nation into a radioactive slag heap (total extermination). The premise is to make the example of that one nation so horrible that no other nation on Earth would ever again contemplate limited or single use of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately I fear that Iran is setting itself up to be that example country. I don't believe the mullahs have any clue what peril they are putting themselves and their people into.

Gary