With the Bush administration unable or unwilling to defeat the Iran-backed enemy in Iraq, any thought of widening U.S. military involvement in the Middle East has dissipated. There is hardly enough American political will to sustain the fight in Iraq, let alone political capital for a pre-emptive strike against Iran.

Instead, it appears the free world's one remaining hope of neutralizing Iran's nuclear arsenal by force is Israel – the nation that launched a pre-emptive strike against Saddam Hussein's nuclear bomb factory in 1981.

It's a matter of survival for Israel, we're told. After all, everyone is familiar with the bellicose mutterings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel. Right?

Maybe. Perhaps. Could be. Iran might indeed strike Israel with nuclear weapons if it ever had the chance. But, I think it's more likely Iran's determination to develop nuclear weapons is based on its desire to destroy "the Great Satan," not "the Little Satan."

There are several reasons to make this judgment:

Ahmadinejad's first public call for destroying Israel came at an Oct. 26, 2005, conference in Tehran to envision "The World Without Zionism." While the newly elected Iranian president's threats against the Jewish state were well recorded by the international media, his equally threatening calls for the destruction of the U.S. went virtually unnoticed.

"Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?" he asked. "But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved."

Poster for "The World Without Zionism" conference in Tehran, Oct. 26, 2005

More chilling was the graphic displayed prominently in front of Ahmadinejad's podium and elsewhere throughout the conference. Until it was reproduced weeks later in my G2 Bulletin online intelligence newsletter, it had not been published in any Western media. It shows a giant hourglass with two cylindrical objects falling toward destruction – the first representing the U.S., the second representing Israel. In other words, it wasn't just a world without Zionism and Israel that Ahmadinejad and his friends in Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups were envisioning. It was a world without the United States of America. And, if there is any significance to the graphic – and, I believe there is – the U.S. would be the first target. The Iranian president did note that Iran had developed a strategic "war preparation plan" for what it calls the "destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization."

What might such a plan look like?

Also, as my G2 Bulletin first reported in 2005, even before Ahmadinejad won the presidency, his Islamic republic was test-firing Scud missiles from naval ships and detonating them in mid-air. What does that mean? According to the top-level experts in the U.S. military and scientific community, it can mean only one thing – Iran has been practicing for a nuclear electro-magnetic pulse attack. A distinguished commission set up by the U.S. Congress to study the threat of an EMP attack on America took note of Iranian military plans. Tehran's military journals boasted that this was the best way to bring America to its knees. It's cheap. It's technologically easy. And there is even a certain degree of plausible deniability involved.

Iran already has medium-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads into Europe. But they won't need them for this kind of an operation. It's actually all very low-tech – and it would have the effect of reducing America to a very low-tech nation, potentially crippling our electrical grid, blowing out computer chips and causing a slow death for millions reliant on modern transportation and communication.

Let me also point out another fact that should be obvious to one and all. Nuclear missiles fired at Israel would hardly kill only Jews. More than 1 million Arabs live in Israel, a country only nine miles wide at one point. The Jewish state is surrounded by millions of Muslims – including lots of Shiites to the north in Lebanon.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at "The World Without Zionism" conference

While it's true that Ahmadinejad has expressed his willingness to sacrifice up to half of Iran's population to destroy Israel, I don't believe he even thinks nuclear missiles will be necessary to do the job. All it requires is to bring Israel's only real ally in the world to its knees – an eventuality that will be within his grasp once his country has nuclear missiles.

It's worth pointing out that Iran already has the delivery system necessary for such an attack. No, Iran doesn't have inter-continental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. It doesn't need them. It has Hezbollah, an army of 25,000 terrorists that is more than capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to America and detonating it. It also has the option of doing even more damage to the U.S. through an electro-magnetic pulse attack – one that could be carried out by a small craft with a $100,000 Scud missile launcher from offshore with plausible deniability.

So, why would Iran accept the certain destruction of its own country in a nuclear missile attack on Israel when it can have its cake and eat it, too, by bringing down "the Great Satan" – leaving "the Little Satan" isolated and helpless and without allies?

Benjamin Netanyahu recently made the statement: "It is 1939 and Iran is Germany." Actually, it's a lot worse than that. Because today Germany has terrorist allies operating all over the globe on its behalf. And, this time Germany will have nuclear weapons.