As Iran, with Russia's help gets ready to flip the switch on its first nuclear reactor, Washington is engaged in a frenzied debate over whether Israel should consider launching an air attack designed to cripple Tehran's nuclear capabilities.
But key military officials and analysts say Iran has already passed the point where a strike would deal its entire nuclear program a fatal blow. The country might be persuaded to abandon any efforts to build a bomb, they say, but like it or not Iran is going nuclear. And no number of Israeli F-16s is going to change that.
The mechanics of shutting down Iran's nuclear program are mindboggling. The Bushehr facility a power plant along the Persian Gulf that uses non-weapons-grade fissile material will be Iran's first functioning nuclear reactor; its Russian-provided fuel is expected to be loaded up starting this weekend.
But Bushehr is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
Iran has a uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz and another at Qom, which Western allies blew the whistle on last year. Several facilities critical to the nuclear program are known to be scattered throughout the country, and others are believed to exist in unknown locations. Iran has committed to building more reactors and more enrichment facilities, and as long as it has nuclear physicists, the regime can continue to pursue its goals.
Attacking Iran's nuclear program might be like Mickey Mouse chopping broomsticks in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The program could be taken down but for how long?
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