I've been waiting for something like this. An addition to the problems that Israel faces from Iran, it seems, is that by next year it will be capable of making dirty bombs. That's the message that's apparantly been given to the Israeli cabinet today.

Debkafile reports that a briefing is being given that Iran will now be capable of creating plutonium from 2008. They no doubt are aware of this from the receipts Dick Cheney kept from his Halliburton rector part sales in the late 90s.

The dirty bomb thing is, as I've been yapping all year, a pill coating to sell the Iran attack to the great unwashed. Mushroom clouds are too much to contemplate, but little radioactive bangs striking fear into a city are another thing altogher.. much more user-friendly in the fear factor department.

What happens now? Try this from RoD Greher of the Dallas Morning News:

You think Iraq has been a quagmire? Wait till we attack Iran. A land war is out of the question, given the burdens now on the shoulders of U.S. troops in Iraq. If we launch, we'll go by air. In the best-case scenario, a sustained aerial bombardment would cripple Iran's nuclear capability and its ability to fight back through the air.

What next?

Iran would launch a missile barrage at U.S. positions in Iraq, killing thousands of American troops.

Tehran's agents and their militant allies in Iraq and around the world would likely launch terror operations against U.S. targets worldwide, including in Europe and the United States.

Though leaders of Gulf Arab states would silently cheer the Americans for acting to blunt Iranian hegemony, the Muslim street, from Indonesia to Algeria, easily could catch fire with anti-American fury. And aside from Israel, no country in the world would stand with us.

The Iranians would do their best to disrupt Persian Gulf shipping, and the United States would have to blockade Iranian ports. This would send the price of oil into the stratosphere, with dire consequences for the world economy.

And would a diplomatically isolated America really risk conflict with Russia and China by refusing to let those nations' ships dock at Iranian ports?