Iran bomb fever ratchets up in Israel

Waltz contends the religious hierarchy with the final say are rational thinkers who would quite understand that one bomb on Israel, which incidentally would kill thousands of Palestinians as well as Israelis, would result in a massive retaliation, turning their country into a radioactive graveyard.

He also rejects the widely-held belief that an Iranian bomb could be passed to a convenient terrorist organisation, such as Hizbollah, to do the dirty work.

"It would be easy to discover Iranian responsibility, and countries that develop nuclear weapons retain tight control over their arsenals. After all, building a bomb is costly and dangerous and it would make little sense to transfer the product of that investment to parties that cannot be trusted or managed," he writes.

Even so, just one Iranian bomb is something Israel will not tolerate and the leadership in Tehran knows this. The game going on in the Middle East may simply be another in the ancient tradition of bluff and counter bluff and that in the end Iran may actually want to do what it says it has been doing all along – develop a peaceful nuclear energy program so that it can sell more of its oil overseas and ultimately, replace oil for its energy needs when that finite resource has had its day.

Working out how that can be proved, while keeping the worried attack dog Benjamin Netanyahu on a leash, will be a priority for the next American Administration, whatever its political make-up.