The disadvantage to this kind of attack, as I mentioned before (in the Guillotine Gambit and in Iran Strategies 2: Beachhead Bingo), is that we really don't know exactly what Iran has. We know there are at least two dozen sites -- but Iran could have as many as seventy or eighty. Even with the best planning and flawless execution, we're not going to get them all; what remains will be a seed for resumption, if Iran decides to continue down that path.

But we could dramatically increase the number of sites we can hit if we take the obvious precaution of getting Mossad to cooperate with the Pentagon, sharing with us everything they know about nuclear facilities in Iran. Oddly, while the Israelis had very little penetration into Iraq under Saddam Hussein, they have a lot better human intelligence (humint) sources in Persia; they can help a lot by revealing probable sites to us that the CIA would never have a chance of uncovering... and Israel, once convinced that we really are going to attack, would likely decide that they'd rather we hit everything... because Israel, of course, will bear the brunt of the inevitable Iranian counterattack.

So that brings us to a better plan:

• The all-out attack on all known or suspected sites, using intelligence input and perhaps even on-the-ground laser targeting from the Israelis.

Naturally, Iran will respond to such an "outrage against Allah" by throwing everything they can lay their hands on at anybody unlucky enough to lie within reach. They don't have missiles that can reach the United States (that we know of!), but we certainly have assets they can attack right across the border with Iraq.

We also have to assume that Iran has chemical and biological weapons capability, though likely crude; and we should assume they will strike at civilian targets in preference to hardened military ones. Thus, as part of any planning for a strike, we also have to take out any retaliatory forces they have: ballistic and cruise missiles, bombers, even light aircraft and helicopters.

We should cut the roads leading from Iran into Iraq and Afghanistan; and we should also drive some of our forces into the Iran side of the border, hunting out and destroying any "safehouses" and terrorist forces we catch unprepared. My guess is that Iran expects a strike -- but they expect a limited strike, like Clinton used on Hussein: a few days of bombing that they think they can ride out. If we hit them as hard as we're envisioning here, we've got a good chance of "catching them with their pants down," as General Turgidson says in Dr. Strangelove.

But we cannot assume we're safe forever. Iran will eventually strike back, and they will shoot missiles at us, the Israelis, Iraq, Afghanistan, and possibly even at Europe, if they have intermediate-range mobile missiles that survive our assault. We need to set up theater anti-missile systems in as many sites as we can realistically do.

Further, we must assume Iran will utilize Hezbollah -- probably its first choice in terrorist organizations, since Iran created Hezbollah and still largely controls it (except for the Lebanon chapter, which is presumably controlled by Bashar Assad in Syria). Thus, it behooves us to strike Hezbollah at the same time we strike Iran.

The Israelis might want to do some bombing runs down the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, where the Syrian-controlled Lebanese Hezbollah is known to have its major strength. While Lebanon itself wouldn't cooperate with Israel in such an attack (I don't think they would), they probably wouldn't be heartbroken to see Hezbollah rolled up.

So now we have the almost-final list of targets:

• An all-out attack on all known or suspected sites, using intelligence and targeting from Israel, coupled with an attack on all retaliatory forces, including missile sites, air bases, Iranian-backed "insurgents" in Shiite Iraq and along the border, and known sites for Hezbollah, and with our own missile-defense facilities in readiness for the inevitable counter-attack.

We should precede the attack with a lot of "psy-ops" -- moving troops all around to confuse the Iranians whether we are or aren't, if we do, when and how we will. But that's a given with any attack and goes without saying (so I shouldn't even have mentioned it, I guess).

But there is one last point... one that will certainly shock Europe -- so we don't dare tell them about it beforehand, because they might very well warn the Iranians.

Iran is also known to have a very cozy relationship with al-Qaeda, which makes no bones about wanting to attack the American homeland again. If Iran is thwarted in other ways (or even if they were successful in counterattacking us), they would certainly turn to al-Qaeda with money, weaponry, intelligence, and other support services, hoping the terrorists could pull off "the big one," the mother of all terrorist attacks that would be so devastating that (the Iranians believe) America would collapse and beg for peace.

So at the same time as we attack Iran and Hezbollah... we must launch simultaneous, well-coordinated, military assaults on all Iranian embassies or diplomatic missions in the United States.

Raid them all, cart off all documents, and we will probably identify a very large percentage of the al-Qaeda sleeper agents within our country. As we know from reporters such as Kenneth Timmerman, top Iranian leaders -- including, for example Hojjat-ol eslam Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, the chief inspector of the Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS), a secret organization that reports direction to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- have in the past met directly with top al-Qaeda leaders, such as Ayman Zawahiri and even Saad bin Laden, Osama's eldest son and heir, as some guy on Captain's Quarters once revealed.

Iranians, like Iraqis, and like a great many dictators, keep careful records of their contacts; in particular, they would surely have better lists of al-Qaeda sleepers in the United States than does the FBI or the CIA. While it would cause an "international incident" for us to raid the embassies (including those at the United Nations building), it couldn't be any worse a one than the earful we'll already get for bombing Iran, would it?

So that's my final thought:

• The all-out attack on all known or suspected sites, using intelligence and targeting from Israel, coupled with an attack on all retaliatory forces, including missile sites, air bases, Iranian-backed "insurgents" in Shiite Iraq and along the border, and known sites for Hezbollah, and with our own missile-defense facilities in readiness for the inevitable counter-attack... and including simultaneous military raids on all Iranian embassies, legations, and missions in the United States (including Turtle Bay), plus all suspected Iranian intelligence sites in the U.S., to seize all records that might lead us to al-Qaeda sleeper-cells within our country.

Whew, that's quite a list! But if we're really going to go down this road, it's much better to get it right, even if it means a delay of some months, than to rush it and half-bake the clam. As Machiavelli said (or as he should have said, if he didn't get around to it), "if you strike at the king, you must slay him."

No pussyfooting: if we're going to do it, we have to do it up right!