Seven Oaks Magazine.

The London Sunday Times recently quoted an Israeli defense source as claiming, "Israel will on no account permit Iranian reactors - especially the one being built in Bushehr with Russian help - to go critical.”

There have also been reports the Israeli military has built a model of the reactor for military training purposes. Under the Iranian deal with Moscow , waste would be shipped back to Russia after two years of cooling. Critics argue that this amount of time would allow Iran to extract the plutonium which could be used for nuclear weapons.

The London Sunday Times quoted Israeli sources as saying that if the Bushehr plant is fully functional, a quarter ton of plutonium would be produced - sufficient for making 20 nuclear bombs. The Sunday Times went on to quote an Israeli source: "If the worst comes to worst and international efforts fail, we are confident we'll be able to demolish the Ayatollah's nuclear aspirations in one go."

During the recent US presidential elections, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying he would not rule out a pre-emptive strike on Iranian facilities similar to Israeli attacks against Iraqi facilities in 1981 under then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Russia is expected to deliver the enriching rods from a Russian port late next year. There are currently one million Russians living in Israel, largely immigrants from the fall of the Soviet Union. If the attacks move forward, facilities in Natanz and Arak may also be hit because of their possible links to nuclear activity.

The recent events in Lebanon, the recent alliance set up between Syria and Iran, and Russia 's geostrategic interests will all play a factor in the decision making of the United States and Israel. The United States will rely heavily on European Union pressure to be placed on Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin and the Iranian leadership. Earlier this week, Russian chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov won an international chess tournament and announced his intention to become involved in Russian politics. Kasparov is a liberal reformer who is highly critical of the centralized approach of Putin, a former KGB operative.

The Russian president views the Iranian situation as a sign of Western encroachment that will inevitably lead to the oil-rich Central Asian republics which were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Iranian reformers are playing on the hope that the US and Israel utilize diplomatic channels so that the Iranian hardliners are not given a wider mandate. An attack on Iranian facilities, as this line of thinking goes, will only bolster the support of the Islamist hardliners. As well, Israel, a nation of 6 million, would not want a prolonged altercation with Iran, a nation of over 60 million. A pre-emptive strike against Iran could very well mean attacks on Israel from Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

Iran has medium range missile which are capable of reaching Israel and has been involved in arming Hizbullah rebels in Lebanon. The US earlier this week made overtures to accepting Hizbullah into the mainstream political establishment of Lebanon as part of the new political reality of the Syrian withdrawal, despite opposition from Israel.

The US is primarily concerned about averting a nationalist backlash in Iran which would be counter to internal reforms it has been pushing for several years. With its current occupation in Iraq, the Bush administration will attempt to utilize the leadership in Egypt and Saudi Arabia to keep tensions from boiling over in the Middle East.