I typically write my replies for anyone likely to be reading the post, not just the OP'er. Including the links to all 5 of the things I am referencing directly, is, I think, something I have a history of doing, you know that. I'm not giving his citations, I'm giving mine, that they overlap is hardly coincidental, of course, but I consider a post referencing multiple articles to be incomplete (by my standards) without including those references. Also, let me point out, I posted five links, only two of which were in the WaPo article. So I'm not trying to school you, just being complete

As for Zakaria himself, he takes heat from both the right and the far left, while part of me approves of anyone who does this, it's worth noting that their objections on his various articles are not baseless. He also has a bad tendency to trash Palin, he really went after her in fall of '08, and I think in many cases took it well beyond good taste. He called her worse than Quayle, said she'd never spent a day thinking about national or international issues, and various other tasteless slights which happened to appear in the same issue of Newsweek that featured Gov. Palin in jogging shorts on the cover. Now, as Palin bashers go, I've seen a lot worse even from other professional journalists, but I have difficulty viewing the man as a reliable source when he so regularly engages in ad hominem attacks. Incidentally the reference to him living on the moon is a small joke, he's accused by the far left of being elitist and living with his head in the clouds. I do not consider him uninformed or stupid, but I do happen to agree with that sentiment, though I don't agree with the people expressing that sentiment or all of their justifications on the matter.



The reply I posted to myself has an article that covers this better than I can. I'm also not sure why it's a decade delay in the inevitable. We don't want a genocidal regime of religious fanatics having the bomb, considering how many countries have the tech but don't have the bomb, one might assume a different regime might stop trying for it, especially if they've had their efforts smashed, if necessary, repeatedly.



I certainly don't like doing anything that might drive more Iranians further into support of their despotic regime, but not bombing the Nazis for fear of drumming up more internal support for Hitler wasn't a rational plan either. We must look to the safety of ourselves and our allies before other considerations. Honestly, I doubt targeting their nuclear facilities will give them a lot of additional support, regardless, I do not think we can worry about it if it does. Appeasements or sanctions, clearly neither is enough, both have been tried, it's lose-lose, so you may as well go with the option that gives betters odds of protecting our country and our allies. It's not just Israel, don't put it past these guys to smuggle a bomb into Iraq if they get one, large rockets able to deliver a nuclear warhead are trickier than nuclear bombs to make anyway, and have to be extensively tested. Getting a nuke over the border into Iraq is easier. Regardless, them with nukes is not acceptable, and we do have the ability to keep them from having them. I don't think there is much of a rush, but I sincerely doubt delays will help us. Better to do it, if we plan to, while we still have troops in Iraq, since they might decide to counter attack that way, and Iraq's military is vastly inferior currently compared to Iran's.



Basically all of them, this is a tricky sort of thing to give references on but here's the best one I can come up with on short notice. It's from World Focus, and reasonably recent, World Focus is usually considered pretty objective and the man being interviewed, Dr. Shabaneh, is probably the most knowledgeable and reliable person I'm going to be able to dig up on this matter without extensive shuffling through the blogosphere. Hopes this satisfies.