Is Israel preparing to attack Iran? - David Ignatius

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-israel-preparing-to-attack-iran/2012/02/02/gIQANjfTkQ_story.html

“You stay to the side, and let us do it,” one Israeli official is said to have advised the United States. A “short-war” scenario assumes five days or so of limited Israeli strikes, followed by a U.N.-brokered cease-fire. The Israelis are said to recognize that damage to the nuclear program might be modest, requiring another strike in a few years.
U.S. officials see two possible ways to dissuade the Israelis from such an attack: Tehran could finally open serious negotiations for a formula to verifiably guarantee that its nuclear program will remain a civilian one; or the United States could step up its covert actions to degrade the program so much that Israelis would decide that military action wasn’t necessary.

The "short war" scenario is a fantasy.
First of all the Iranians would actually close the Straits of Hormuz. Not with ships, but with sea-to-sea missiles. They couldn't do it for long, US and/or Israeli aircraft could eliminate the batteries in time, but it is entirely plausible that the Iranians could flail wildly at any ship that happens to be in the Gulf at the time. Oil prices would roil for months, far beyond the scope of any short war.
Secondly, there is every chance that Hezbollah would unleash their primitive rocket arsenal upon Israel, raining 10-20,000 (or more) Katyushas upon Israel proper. Iran would probably only pull this card in an "existential" crisis, but given the effects of the Arab Spring and the thought of losing a high-profile confrontation to Israel, this might fit the bill. Attacks by Hezbollah would open a second front on Israel and would require a response, a response that will be much more of a slog and would probably take weeks or months to wrap up.
Thirdly, even low level attacks by Israel would inflame the Islamists in Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, and possibly even Turkey. Pressure by the "arab street" could lead wobbling governments to take rash actions that can't possibly be predicted right now.

An attack by Israel on Iran may be warranted but it should not be fanciful. The point of references, the "short wars" of the 1960s and 1970s and the attack on Syria's reactor, are unfit for this scenario. The days of armor and air force confrontations in the desert are over. This would be the cataclysmic confrontation in the middle east and I think that most of the parties are starting to recognize that.