I have to disagree that it is "everyone". The Iraelis are the innocent parties here and always have been. The scary thing here is the rumor that the US is willing to go ballistic on this. Part of the whole argument for US involvement in the affairs of Israel is that we are supposed to provide some balance to the situation, especially under the current president.
Twice now, Israel managed to gently castrate its neighbor's fledgling nuclear weapons programs. Once at Syria recently,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/syria/nuke.htm
the other time at Iraq under Saddam Hussein,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osirak
Osirak was attacked once by the Iranians before the Iran/Iraq war and later Israel completed the job.
Notice at the Wikipedia link,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osirak#...sraeli_attacks
Quote:
Iranian and Israeli attacks
Although most agreed that Iraq was years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon, the Iranians and the Israelis felt any raid must occur well before nuclear fuel was loaded to prevent radioactive contamination. Further, Israel's Menachem Begin feared that Israel's next elected government would not act until a nuclear weapon was created.
Iran attacked and damaged the site on September 30, 1980 with two F-4 Phantoms, shortly after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. This was the first attack on a nuclear reactor and only the third on a nuclear facility in history of the world. It was also the first instance of a pre-emptive attack on a nuclear reactor to forestall the development of a nuclear weapon, though it did not achieve its objective as France repaired the reactor after the Iranian attack.
In Israel, intelligence agencies authorized an air strike based on the fear that Iraq would use the nuclear fuel to produce weapons. This took place on June 7, 1981, in what was known as Operation Opera. The Israeli Air Force launched a strike with eight F-16 multi-role fighters and six F-15s for escorts, which flew from Etzion Airbase.
Shortly after that, the northern Sinai base was vacated and returned to Egypt in accordance with the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. At the time, Etzion was Israel's southernmost airbase - the closest it had to Iraq. The strike force flew 680 miles (1,100 km) across Jordan, Saudi Arabia and into Iraq to bomb the target. Arriving at around 1730, the strike force quickly destroyed the reactor site and returned safely to Israel. Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French researcher were killed in the attack.[13] It was supposed that the strike force evaded detection by flying close together so that instead of appearing as a squadron of small fighters on radar, they appeared as a single large jet, and not much attention was given to them.
One of the Israeli pilots on the mission was Ilan Ramon, who would later become Israel's first astronaut and died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003.
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"Further, Israel's Menachem Begin feared that Israel's next elected government would not act until a nuclear weapon was created."
Of course that is Israel's situation now. Taking out Iran's nuclear weapons program wouldn't be anything as easy as Iraq's or Syria's, it certainly wouldn't take anything like the destruction of Iran and U.S. bombers against 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours.
If Iran's nuclear weapons program had been as easy to target as Iraq's and Syria's, they would have done it a long time ago and everyone would have been secretely relieved to see them do it. They would have publicly incited the usual pack of lies against Israel, but nothing Israel does pleases enough people, it seems.