As long as the government representing all 300+ million Americans thinks and acts so, then the individual feelings of American citizens towards Israel are utterly unimportant..

Unfortunately I do have to agree with you there. But the phrase “you Americans” seems to point to the people and not the government, which I’d object to as you know full well that I am in no way a fan of ANY pro-Israeli US policies!

They could carry AIM-54s on the wings without the underfuselage pallets I think, remember that the lower half of the wing pylon was different if an AIM-54 was mounted than if an AIM-7/9 was mounted.

Are you sure that’s an Su-34 in the photo? It’s clearly got the side-by-side cockpit and is being built at NAPO, but for some reason the nose doesn’t look right. Granted the chine fairings aren’t there yet but the radome looks like it’ll be more round than the oval shape of the Su-34. New weird variant?

With conventional cruise missiles though you’d have to fire a LOT to cover the number of targets

Not really, there are fewer than 10 critical facilities, and you don’t have to blow up every building to knock a facility out of action. The only problem is the geographical distances between the targets, which would negate any serious attempt at an aerial assault using fewer than, say, 50 aircraft!

not to mention the most sensitive, nuclear related targets would probably laugh at a cruise missile because of their hardness

All they’d need is a penetrating warhead. Not unheard of. And since the Tor-M1s are only deployed around Natanz according to media reporting, the missiles will probably be laughing at the HQ-2s and HAWKs defending the remaining sites. Iran’s SAM network is a joke until they get S-300PTs into operational service. S-200s can threaten ISR aircraft and other HVAAs, but that’s pretty much the only serious threat.

I guess a ballistic missile strike against Israel would be fair-game IF Israel bombs Iran correct?

Absolutely. That’d be precisely what I’d expect to see.

How many variants of the “Shahab” BM with the necessary range are at Irans disposal?

Probably only the Shahab-3 given the distances involved. Read more about Iranian ballistic missiles here: http://geimint.blogspot.com/2008/02/iranian-missile-silos.html

As featured in Jane’s Missiles & Rockets, of course 😀

Sorry, that just doesn’t get old!

Well wonder what the reaction would be if who knows how many Iranians were to die of such an attack?

You can put money on the term “Persian Holocaust” being plastered all over the media.

If they really want to do this then their best bet is to fire cruise missiles from their submarine fleet. Move a few into the Persian Gulf and let fly. Solves all sorts of problems and raises confusion as to who actually did it, making Iran’s retaliatory options a bit muddled. The question then becomes whether or not Israel has the willpower to do this without informing the US. It also solves the problem of having to deal with many geographically separated sites.

The speed of sound does eventually increase again as you get around 70,000 feet. It does have to do with changes in air temperature, that part is correct. Once you hit the stratosphere, the speed of sound increases gradually until it hits around 640 knots at 155,000 feet.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/atmosphere/q0112.shtml