Footnote to the preceding, another corner heard from

According to a commentary by Nicholas Blanford in the July 23 Daily Star (Lebanon), Israel's

annual intelligence report declar[ed] that the Islamic Republic represents the gravest existential threat facing the Jewish state. The report focuses on Iran's potential for developing nuclear weapons, with Israel estimating that Tehran will be able to build its first nuclear bomb by 2007 at the earliest.

But the head of Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service, Avi Dichter, has also highlighted Iran's efforts to penetrate the occupied Palestinian territories as well as the Israeli Arab community to establish a "fifth column." Hizbullah was cited as the principle engine for Iranian intervention in the Palestinian intifada.

The possibility of what has in the past been called "the Islamic bomb" apparently has Israeli security concerned enough that

[t]he Israeli Air Force has completed military preparations for a pre-emptive strike at Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility and will attack if Russia supplies Iran with rods for enriching uranium, Israeli officials said, according to a report in the London Sunday Times. Military sources said the raid would be carried out by long-range F-15I jets, overflying Turkey, with simultaneous operations by commandos on the ground.

Israel may also choose to launch submarine-based cruise missiles from the Persian Gulf at key Iranian targets, NewsMax.com reported.

The rods, currently stored at a Russian port, are expected to be delivered late next year....

That from the Israeli Insider, July 19, which added that the source said "we are very confident we'll be able to demolish the ayatollahs' nuclear aspirations in one go," even as

Israeli sources acknowledged, according to the Sunday Times, that a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities could provoke "a ferocious response," which could involve Lebanese-based rocket attacks on northern Israel or terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets abroad.

A possible case of the cure being worse than the disease?