Both Bibi and Obama know that an open attack on Iran would tear the world apart and that neither the USA or Israel has the money or manpower to sustain a large scale land war against a nation state with over 2700 years of history and an Army and Air defenses that can actually fight a war. The real nuclear threat of the world of Islam lies in fragile government of Pakistan.

The American Iranian Council says that the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than a US-Israeli attack. Opening up Iranian society is what they fear the most.

I think Ahmadenijad (and the real power in Iran, that gaggle of aging mullahs) may have us correctly pegged, given that I've seen little evidence or any sufficiently threatening statements by high-ranking US officials, that we ARE doing anything but bluffing. Israel is a different matter, but they don't have the capability to deal anything resembling a decisive blow to the Persian nuke program.

Or, Don, to put it another way; the Iranians aren't going to give up their belief we're bluffing until all the requisite forces, ranging from the B-52s in Diego Garcia (and other places) and the B-1s in Missouri, along with several carrier battle groups brought close enough to the theater to be within striking range, as well as the indispensable observation and and command-and-control and signals-jamming aircraft we'll need, along with any appropriate drones and whatever Special Ops forces we'll send in via chopper to neutralize the most threatening sources of immediate Perisan retaliation or counterattack, combined with all necessary cruise-missile-armed subs and assorted other assets, are fully readied so that each bomber and fighter wing and every other unit involved launches at the proper moment so as to ensure the sequence of events essential to neutralization of pertinent Iranian air defense systems followed by our subsequent and unprecedently heavy airstrikes at targets with the, in many cases, new and in some cases experimental bombs/missiles possessing the tonnage and pentrating power required to eliminate targets more hardened and buried than any we've ever had to deal with, take place in the necessary sequence, the intitiation of this build-up and massively complicated OpPlan perhaps coinciding with an ultimatum but preferably not because tactical surprise will be very important for the operation to succeed. Once all of this takes place, and not a moment before, Tehran will persist in believing we're unwilling to hit them.

The rhetoric coming from Iran is tame (and probably just bluster) compared to the rhetoric from Israel and the actual actions of the US and Israel including out right crimes and acts of war like the Stuxnet virus, assassinations of civilian Iranian scientists, and surrounding Iran with a military arsenal. Yet the US and Israel are afraid of some rhetoric? Please. The US and Israel have had many chances to de-escalate the situation most prominently the deal set up by Turkey and Brazil regarding enriched uranium that was actually an Obama idea, then he nixed it because they want to antagonize Iran.

I have given up believing anything will ever happen, and that is to the good. I have changed my tune and urge all parties to spend scarce pecuniary resources on improving child care and maternal health...wink

I'm with Nana on a theory of escalation, but.. that's not the only policy option, and I'm going with that one.