Below The Beltway

The blogosphere is abuzz over this report from the Sunday Times of London that Israel is planning to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons sites, with nuclear weapons:

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran?s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear ?bunker-busters?, according to several Israeli military sources.

The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.

Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open ?tunnels? into the targets. ?Mini-nukes? would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

?As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,? said one of the sources.

The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad?s assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.

Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.

While it has elements of Israel’s 1981 attack on the Osirak reactor in Iraq, the consequences of an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran could be dire:

Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released.

The Israelis believe that Iran?s retaliation would be constrained by fear of a second strike if it were to launch its Shehab-3 ballistic missiles at Israel.

However, American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West.

Or, as James Joyner puts it:

While eliminating Iran?s nuclear program would be a boon to humanity, I fear a military strike?let alone one with the added taboo of a nuclear first strike?would have catastrophic consequences. Given that any action by Israel would be viewed regionally as a proxy strike by the United States, whether or not it was done with tacit approval from the Bush administration, it would almost certainly create a ripple effect throughout the Arab world and lead to more terrorist strikes. Indeed, the repercussions would likely exceed those of successful Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Which just leads me to believe it would be a bad idea all around.

Jay at Stop The ACLU has a fairly exhaustive round-up of what others are saying about this.