The Economist doesn't have a clue. They spend a lot of time discussing an Israeli air strike. They sort of conclude the because the Israelis have not laid down a "red line", they don't plan a strike. That's not how the Israelis do things.
The Israelis understand something that any parent learns pretty quick. Namely, never make idle threats. If you make a threat, you gotta be ready to carry it out. If you make a threat and then back down at crunch time, things get worse for you. One day Obama may learn this.
As far as carrying out an air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, there is reason to doubt the Israeli Air Force has the capability to do an effective strike. Iran has a lot of sites, some of them are buried really really deep, no one knows if the Israelis know which sites are critical, and which are dummies. Iran has air defenses, and a suite of hot new Russian SAM's on order. I don't know how many aircraft the Israelis have, if they have the range and payload needed to do the job. I'm sure the Israelis have worked the numbers on an air strike, and the answer is probably, "We would have to be awfully lucky to carry it off".
As long as that's the answer, the Israelis aren't gonna make threats, 'cause they aren't sure they can make good on them. They may decide to throw the dice if things get sticky, but they won't make threats or announce their plans in advance.
There is one equalizer that doesn't get talked about much. The Israelis are believed to have nuclear weapons, although they have never made any such claim and are not known to have conducted a bomb test. If the Israeli's made the first strike on Iran with nukes, their odds go way up for them, you only need one hit with a nuke to take out damn near anything. However, the big boys (Russia and the US) have made it abundantly clear that they disapprove of use of nukes by anybody. Nobody knows just what the big boys might do, but nobody wants to find out either.
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