The Decision

"Once the stuff is under the mountain and operating under the mountain, it essentially becomes immune to Israeli military attack." Simon Henderson, head of Persian Gulf policy, Washington Institute for Near East Policy

The 'stuff' in question, of course is all those spinning centrifuges working day and night to produce uranium to 20% enrichment, just a wee tad off weapons-grade. And the mountain, of course, is the Fordow installation burrowed neatly inside a mountain bunker close by the holy city of Qom. That site is almost - not quite - impregnable, resistant to being breached.

Iran is working feverishly to rectify that little problem, to fortify Fordow completely from attack. It is closing off its points of vulnerability, said to represent entrances and ventilation shafts. It is when that 'hardening' process has been complete that the opportunity for Israel to express its rejection of Iran's plans to become a nuclear-weapons-industry by bombing the facility will be too late.

So the window of opportunity is relatively narrow, said to be several months. Israel is in possession of bunker-buster bombs, capable of damage, but not to a site that is located 8 metres deep within a mountain stronghold. It has long known that the GBU-28 bombs sold by the United States to Israel's air force had a limited use when faced with bombing a mountainside in Iran's Great Salt Desert.

Those 696 centrifuges enriching uranium, buried beneath layers of rock and earth are now scarcely accessible; when the hardening process has been completed, rendering the site bomb-proof, it will only be the much heavier, more destructive GBU-57 bunker busters that the United States refused to sell to Israel, that could conceivably damage the facility beyond repair.

And then, even if Israel had those bombs they haven't the giant B2 and B52 bombers it takes to deliver them. If they were to be used, should Israel decide to adhere to the pressure exerted on it to wait out sanctions, by the Obama administration which insists it "has Israel's back", it would only be if and when Barack Obama gave instructions to that effect.

The decision whether or not to strike, when to strike and how to ensure that Israel is not alone in the venture is yet to be arrived at. The Arab Gulf States are anxious that that decision be taken, that Iran's nuclear plans be struck. The West in General, and the United States in particular, are all heavily invested in depriving Iran of its oncoming invulnerability, with the possession of nuclear weaponry.

Just as urgently as all wish to de-nuclearize Iran, Iran far more urgently seeks success.

The condemnations from the United Nations and the IAEA, and the sanctions taken on by the United States, Canada, the European Union and others have hurt Iran economically, but have not given it much pause for thought, since the Republic is completely disinterested in how the international community views its agenda, and at the same time is defiant about its current hardships; it will prevail because it has Allah leading it to success.

Which should, in fact, give President Barack Obama second thought not to pause too lengthily and allow opportunity to slip through the cracks of caution. President Obama remains mired in the hope that reason will prevail. He cannot seem to understand that rationality has nothing whatever to do with those engrossed pathologically in the passion of faith.