The situation is not yet fully dead-end: there is the IAEA in Iran, which, according to Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, shall not be inspecting nuclear facilities as three weeks ago, but would hold talks on the issue. Meanwhile, American military experts believe that a military operation against Iran, which is not excluded by the Israeli leadership, will prove extremely challenging. As reported by The New York Times, an Israeli mission to annihilate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would require a minimum of 100 fighter jets. “Such a large number is due to several reasons. Firstly, Israel has American-built F-15I and F-16I fighter jets that can carry bombs to the targets, but their range — depending on altitude, speed and payload — falls far short of the minimum 2,000-mile round trip, which means that Israel would have to use airborne refueling planes, called tankers. Any number of tankers would need to be protected by ever more fighter planes, which would need refueling, too. Secondly, Israeli planes cannot just fly to the nuclear facilities, drop bombs and return, because of active resistance by Iran's air defense. That is, Israel would still need to use part of its electronic warfare planes to penetrate Iran's air defenses and jam its radar systems to create a corridor for an attack. Thirdly, many Iranian nuclear installations are spread out across the country, and some of them are greatly strengthened. Therefore, for an effective destruction just one or two bombs are not enough, but a whole series of blows by a number of aircraft is necessary,” specialists say.

Thus, most experts believe that it would be extremely difficult for the Israelis to carry out an operation against Iran. They note that even the U.S. Air Force having bases near the borders of Iran and a much wider arsenal of capabilities would find it difficult to inflict a significant damage to existing nuclear facilities. “There's only one superpower in the world that can carry this off. Israel's great on a selective strike here and there,” said retired Gen. David Deptula.

Also opposed to the strike on Iran is CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha, who said that “A strike on Iran would be a great, huge shock to everyone, not just to the region.” According to him, the CSTO countries are planning different scenarios in the event of a possible outbreak of hostilities against the IRI, however, “not very actively, since they are hoping to avoid a military solution to the problem.”

But, in fact, it's not just the nuclear program – the matter is whether Iran will, after all, be able to become a regional power. In this regard, the United States follows in the footsteps of Turkey, which supports Tehran in words, but in reality does everything possible to prevent its strengthening. In any case, making a bomb is not an easy job; it is not just a gunman wrapped up with explosives. There are necessary carriers, tests, and much more not directly related to uranium. A bomb body made of a special alloy is also necessary. Hardly is it possible that Iran already has all of this. Without a ground test it is impossible to verify the results obtained, and to keep it secret is absolutely impossible. Let us assume that Tehran collects a great deal of enriched uranium. What then? It’s about “then” that no one writes or speaks. And at the present phase no one can accuse Iran of developing nuclear weapons. Let us not forget that components for reactors were supplied to Iran in the 70-80s of the previous century by France and Germany. Undoubtedly, the U.S. did not stand behind, either via a third country. All sanctions against Iran are just dictated by economic considerations and by the desire of the oil lobby around the world to get access to rich deposits. If Ahmadinejad had agreed to play by these rules, no noise would have arisen over his nuclear program. Simply in that case the story of Pakistan would repeat itself: Iran would have a bomb, but would be impotent to explode it...