Iolo - Spot on, Israel don't have any military options. If they don't use nukes they are in the end to be over run. If they do, they will be imemdiately over run. That is why the only solution for Israel is a political one. The military solution will not work forever, that is the simple fact. It is a mere patch on the problem. Others really don't understand nuclear weapons at all. They are a guaranteed loss maker. Their use is only to prevent a victor, they will not make a victor. They only make losers that deny the victor. Then a big cat comes along afterwards and eats up the frail mice. So a real step forward is to remove the nuclear weapons from the middle east as part of the stated world wide aims of the security council. The weapons have no real value in securing the state of Israel, they just have mass killing capability, which if used against civilian targets would be a war crime. A white phosphorous times a million scenario. The only way forward in the middle east is to guarantee human saftey and rights of all peoples equally by the international community. Then walk the long and difficult political process to arrive at a lasting solution. Such a process needs to be without pre-conditions or western terrorist threats. There are always the armchair generals, the ones eager for a fight, the same ones hiding under the table when war visits their lounge and threatens their X-box.

I find it interesting that Iran test-fired Shahab-3 missiles on Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar. Iran is obviously provoking Israel. To offer sanctions on Iran is a total waste of time. This will only give the Iranians time to build longer range missiles to hit cities in Europe. Russia and the rest of Europe needs to be concerned of this, when they meet in Geneva with the United States. It's time for NATO and Russia to build a joint missle shield together.