Israelis Doubt 'Mutual Assured Destruction' Would Deter Devastating Missile Strikes by Nuclear Iran

China confidential:

Amid reports that Chinese companies have increased shipments of sensitive military technologies to Iran, some Israeli analysts have developed a chilling new argument for preemptive military action against the nuclearlizing, non-Arab nation: relative size. The Israeli view is that Islamist Iran is simply too big--and too suicidal--for Israel to depend on the doctrine, or threat, of "mutual assured destruction" to deter Tehran from launching an all-out conventional assault on the tiny (Massachusetts-sized) Jewish state, which, though widely assumed to have a formidable nuclear arsenal, could still be destroyed with one nuclear bomb.The mass-murdering mullahocracy, which promises its followers both a "world without Zionism" and a "world without America," has missiles that can strike all over Israel; and Iran's missile-mad Arab allies, secular Syria and Islamist Hezbollah and Hamas, can also inflict devastating damage on Israeli population centers. Iranian nuclear-tipped missiles could neutralize Israel's nuclear deterrent--i.e. "going nuclear" in order to save the state from a catastrophic defeat.