There has been much speculation of late about the possibility of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities; what there hasn’t been is much analysis about the feasibility of such an attack. There’s an article here which offers a serious and credible examination of some of the issues involved.

Money quote:

The paper’s authors note that to cause the operation to fail, Iranian air defenses would have to down close to 40% of the attacking Israeli jets, an attrition rate that would exceed even the disastrous U.S. raid on Ploesti in Word War II. The MIT analysts conclude that largely because of advances in precision weaponry, “Israeli leaders have access to the technical capability to carry out the attack,” and that it would be no more risky than that of the 1981 raid on Osirak.

The full article is well worth reading even if you are not a military anorak.

Update: I’ve now found the paper discussed in the article mentioned above.