Accept an american nuclear weapon will have finger prints , that can tell anyone who works in the business , exactly where that product was refined. Not to mention , only the states and russia would have penetration nukes , better off taking the bad publicity and stating exactly what was done and why.
Declan
Well, personally I don’t think that launching a nuclear attack on a nation that has not as yet fired a shot at us, then lying to the entire world that we did it, would be a particularly rewarding strategy.
Actually there was a thread here in the SDMB about the fact that you can’t determine the origin of an exploded atomic bomb. It was an italian board member that said something about that… you can’t figure out by the “left over” material.
Also even if the US did it covertly or openly, nuclear or conventionally… do expect Pakistani government and other US muslim allied government to be toppled soon after. Muslim outrage would probably allow fringe members to get a Pakistani nuke and to smuggled into the USA as retaliation.
Americans are still very apologetic about the Hiroshima bomb nearly 60 years ago... how could anyone consider the use of nukes nowadays is beyond me.Sadly your scenario above is entirely plausible, except for the ‘allied’ bit.
Surely you don’t think Blair will ever follow Bush into another ‘war’?
Our Tony won’t even accept his medal for Iraq from Bush:
Of course not, I’m talking like 15-20 years from now. And believe me, one Iran starts trying to throw its weight around, there will be an Allied occupation of Tehran.
Looking at that article, I’m left to wonder how a 70 MegaWatt uranium-powered nuclear energy generating facility could be used to make weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. How the heck can a reactor that’s designed to generate electricity be used to enrich its own fuel?
That is the saddest part… everyone is interested in avoiding Iran from getting nukes… but being to forceful or helpful in this cause might give Bush the excuse to invade or bomb another. Or more political capital for reelection. There is this mistrust of Washington’s potential actions even if only electoral. If it weren’t for adventures like Iraq you could be sure that europeans and the UN would be willing to use more forceful language and measures against Iran. Hail the “uniter”… 
IANANP, but it’s my impression that the clear division between commercial (power) and military (Uranium enrichment) reactors is an American thing, and other nations have built reactors that do both. I believe Chernobyl was one of those, which is one reason it was so unsafe.
The article also noted that there were two other smaller reactors on the site.
I think it has to do with what sort of a reactor it is. Iran was constrcuting one iof the more suspect kinds (a heavy water reactor) in secret.
Would you even need a nuclear strike? How about a high-yield conventional bomb?
I suspect an even more devastating tactic to Iran would be if the Western World simply boycotted Iranian crude-oil exports asap. My understanding is that such a move would play havoc on gasoline prices in the Western World, sure, but it would be a crippling blow to Iran by orders of magnitude.
Personally, I’m thoroughly sick of seeing quasi-tyrannical regimes staying afloat through oil-doped cash flows. Take away Iran’s income I say. Let’s see how well they can survive on exporting Persian carpets and dates instead.
Addendum to my last post - after asking some questions, it seems my suggestion that the Western World should boycott Iranian Crude Oil is a flawed one apparently - insofar as India and China apparently are increasingly crude oil dependant, and the would doubltess pick up any and all oil that the Iranians wanted to sell.
So my two p -
Israel wouldn’t attack on behalf of the US, in my opinion, as they would catch most of the retaliatory strikes.
Iran won’t back down on it’s nuclear program diplomatically, as they seem to think that we can’t attack them (and they may be right) and seem to think the US won’t risk another non-UN supported war.
Using a nuclear strike to take out the reactor wouldn’t work either, as it would be pre-emptive as hell and would never be supported by the UN, as we didn’t do the same things to North Korea, India, or Pakistan when they all got the bomb in violation of nuclear non-proliferation treaties. We would risk not just alienating the rest of the world but having much of it turn actively against us. We always talk sanctions with everyone else, but what about if we had sanctions against us? We get most of our needful things internally, but certainly not all of them… and if we couldn’t sell our products abroad we would certainly be hurting economically…
As for a conventional weapons strike, could be done (and likely easily) and likely without much collateral damage, but as someone already posted in this thread it isn’t as likely to take out the brain trust responsible. So it would delay their bomb program, not stop it entirely.
Special Ops could go in and kill everyone, followed up with a targeted conventional weapons strike, but the difficulties in pulling this off are manifold, not least of which would be penetrating their air defenses and not in a stealth bomber, either… to do it with SF would take helicopters and such. Infiltrating by ground I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And if they were caught, there truly would be hell to pay.
On our side, militarily, I doubt if we could mount the forces required to fully invade Iran without pulling troops out of Iraq or elsewhere. And Iran wouldn’t be the cake walk to invade that Iraq was - they haven’t been under devastating UN sanctions for 12 years and have a much larger population base than Iraq.
So where does this leave us?
Is it so inconceivable that the Iranians could be deterred from using nuclear weapons should they obtain them? I would prefer to live in a world without a nuclear Iran but unless someone comes up with a heck of a carrot I don’t think that situation is likely to continue.
Iran is pursuing two troubling technologies, both of which have civilian and military applications:
They are developing the means to enrich uranium isotopes to produce weapons-grade fuel.
They are building heavy-water breeder reactors (they already have a heavy water manufacturing facility). Using this kind of neutron moderator increases the number of radioisotopes created, and one of those isotopes is plutonium.
There are two ways to do this:
-a conventional high explosive strike against the Iranian’s enrichement plant. This could be put out of action with a few well-aimed cruise missiles.
-get Pakistan to take the blame for it: pay Musharref to send a pakistani bomber to do the deed.
Of course, the Israelis have purchased 350 high-explosive bombs from the US…I don’t think we have too long to wait till THEY deal with it…
It really depends on how deep the facility is. All new facilities being built now , are based on the performance of weapons in operation desert storm. If the facility is above ground , like the osirak reactor in Iraq , the use of 2000 pound conventional bombs are tailor made.
The deeper you have to go , the more the bomb has to be modified to penetrate almost 8 storys down , through hardened and reinforced concrete and other natural barriers . To get around this , the American’s used an 8" heavy cruiser rifle , and added high explosives to achieve the penetration depth.
So it becomes a trade off , to go deeper you lose the ability to make a big hole, as more of the bomb is dedicated to blowing a penetration hole , to get down, and then the rest of the explosives to make big holes, so a 2000 pound LGB may net you 500 pounds of destructive power.
Thats why its gonna be a nuke, get it down there and make a big hole , let the overlaying surface material drop after the fireball recedes,and you get minute amounts of radiation.
Declan
Don’t we have “bunker buster” bombs nowadays that can hammer through dirt and concrete before they explode?
The problem is that current deep penetrator bomb designs are not even close to achieving the penetration depths that would be needed for a “clean” subsurface burst.
See http://www.princeton.edu/~globsec/publications/pdf/10_1Nelson.pdf
The only compelling use I’ve ever seen for nuclear bunker-busters is as giant sterilizers of underground bioweapons facilities, the rationale being the fallout is better than atmospheric release and scattering of infectious agents. As noted by mks57, our most advanced nuclear bunker-buster designs would still spread large amounts of fallout. Nuking a nuclear facility only makes this problem worse.
It will either be conventional bombs, or none at all.