Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Ken, with respect what is flaky is that Israel has waited so long to neutralise this threat to their very existence.
You're assuming that they're capable of of neutralizing that threat. That's far from clear, in several ways:

1) Do they actually know enough about the Iranian programme to effectively target it?

2) If they do know enough, can they actually destroy the targets?

3) At the moment, Iran's nuclear programme consumes a very small portion of Iran's national resources, and it is not at all clear that Tehran plans to build a weapon (as opposed to develop the capacity to build a weapon). It certainly isn't an Iranian "Manhattan project" by a long shot. What happens if bombing Iran convinces them they actually should build a weapon for deterrent purposes, and they increase 10-fold or more the national resources devoted to this?

Given all of those questions, it is not surprising that the Israelis are hoping that sanctions will do the job for them.