Thoughtfully added by the Sunday Times to their top secret war plans to give us the poorly educated an idea of scale. Hmmmmm thought I - is that a standard HB or 2B of 3/8 of an inch in diameter? Or maybe it's a carpenter tradeperson's chippy pencil instead in which case Turkey is an awful lot bigger than I had thought.

Then I looked again with more care and begin to think the object wasn't a pencil but a missile whatyoucall'em thingum-a-jiggy Shahab complete with elasticated rubber band to hold a whopping big nib on the fuselage and disguise it as a gigantic multipurpose pencil just in case agents of the Mossad were looking for retaliatory rocket firing sites where the Sunday Times suggests they should be (on the Iraqi border with Iran or the Lebanese border with Israel).

very crafty disguise. arts & crafty almost.

Then I gave up on the mystery object which is perhaps what poor old Gary McKinnon should have done and learnt that there are more than 3,000 underground centrifuges at Natanz and it's a next to done & fallout dusted factiod that they're going to get bombed by the USAF. They must be dizzy with all the spin. Wikipedia tells us "The Natanz Nuclear Facility, located some 30 km NNE from the town 33°43′N, 51°43′E) near a major highway, is generally recognized as Iran's central facility for enrichment with 164 centrifuges, and as of April 2007 there is speculation that there are upwards of 3000 in the underground facility.[3][4] However, there is some speculation that the site could be a front, while expansion of the centrifuge program goes on elsewhere.[5]"

I suspect most people never think about the citations on wikipedia.

you can't properly speculate without citation [3] from the utterly impartial Israeli daily Ha'aretz newspaper of August 23rd 2006  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/753659.html and some busy website [4] called "foreignaffairs.org for busy people who need both pencils and pens in one unit whose publication of Sept/October 2006 told us about the 3,000+ centrifuges in their whoppingly lucid piece "How to Keep the Bomb From Iran"  http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060901faessay85505/scott-d-sagan/how-to-keep-the-bomb-from-iran.html

They are obviously not in favour of bombing the place.

Q: So who is it that speculates [5] the centrifugal power of the atom is applied somewhere else?
A: The Washington Times,  http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070111-014908-8887r.htm that wonderfully respected newspaper which was founded & is still owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church or "Moonies". You might know that when not busy being a self declared messiah the Reverend Moon dabbles in geopolitics, he's done it for a long time having been entrusted by the CIA to deal with his native Korea and who knows use his heavenly divine powers to stop them getting nukes. So he's obviously an expert in a way the first Jesus wouldn't be. But there are loads of other messiah claimants out there who might help the Sunday Times in future.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants

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I know people get very worried about the possibility of the decent telly a limited nuclear exchange in the Middle East and Mid Asian region would afford us especially if it not only appeared to fulfil prophecy but vindicate their opposition all along to the Iraq war. I don't won't to offend such people by not believing a word of it. I simply suspect I'm not the only one "not to believe a word of it" and am rather amongst many who suspect the whole thing is a charade which routinely distracts our attention from other places and other conflicts and ought only be seen as part of the window dressing for the eventual realpolitik conditions of Iraq and her peoples in the Iranian sphere of influence when the US army goes home.

The US and Israel will paralyse the whole Iranian missile system with their state-of-the art ECMs. Perhaps the dying Iranian regime will manage to loose off a couple of missiles, which the Israelis will shoot down with their Arrows. Unfortunately, the missiles, carrying nuclear and/or chemical payloads, will crash into the West Bank, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians and ISM useful idiots. Most of the world (including, obviously, Brackets Man, Tom Tinker et al) will blame the "Zionists".

The item in the top left hand corner is clearly the front of an Israeli warplane viewed from above. Note the Star of David on the side of the fuselage. You Muppet!

The first commentator here is very funny. I like. As for why Bobby has to dazzle us with his 'quite clearly a pencil' (oops Israeli plane) remark, how do you not know that it is not a pencil that looks like a plane? I thought planes had to have wings on them and this one has had it's wings clipped. You should cite sources before being so cock sure, unless there was some hidden irony in not doing so. Also, what make and model? 2B or not 2B? F16? Poxy Hawk training jet?
What's wrong with people and their doom bin laden comments on these things? Forget the meds? Admittedly not everything is tickety-boo in Iran but they have an enviously strong hand in this chairforce mapped out confrontation. As for pesky little Israel - land of the child mutilation cult known as Zionism - and their state sponsor of terror - the U.S. of failed mortages, I don't see it somehow. They haven't got the guts for it, there is only good ole Dick and Condi left - all the rest have sloped off for their speaking tours. Even our here Don Rummy has gotten bored of transformative wars in the mid-East. Might as well write about how the Germans could have attacked Switzerland for all the good it does. People would post that to blogs and Indymedia too.

So what do you think the Sunday Times photographed on top of their map?

a very small expensive Israeli Jet or a very small expensive Mont Blanc pen/pencil?

muppet to you with semiotics™® & product placement - on top! ;-)

The obvious Iranian response will be to stop supplying Oil.

The effective way for Iran to eliminalte its enemies is, on the face of it, selective Biological warfare. Iranians are not Arabs, so a specifically anti-semitic bioweapon would seem to suit them very well. But it would not work to take out Israelis as most of them are of European origin from a genetic base that chose Judaiism when forced to choose between Religions. I forget what they originally were, perhaps Shaman or suchlike.

The only bioweapon that Iran could safely use is one that its own population had been immunised against. Whatever Government perfects that weapon has to use it immediately before the others perfect theirs and there is not only mutual total destruction, but the extermination of the human race. If God intends that as a way to save the rest of this Creation from Mass Extinction, it is being left a bit late.. The GBs (G Bush and G Brown) have God well beaten.

The destruction of Civilisation could perhaps best be expedited by simultaneously wrecking Oil Tankers in many places. Could tanker crews decide to save the World?