Iran's nuclear ambitions

I just saw Joe Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Fox News channel this morning. He was trying to make the case against airstrikes on Iran's nuclear production facilities, but came up short. The two main points he attempted to make were:

• Any airstrikes would only temporarily delay the program
• Any airstrikes would only serve to accelerate the program

Aside from being two totally contradictory arguments, they're also fundamentally flawed.

The first assumes that airstrikes would be a one-off event. Why does he assume the US (or any other participants) would destroy a facility only to allow it to be rebuilt without any follow up action?

The second, besides being completely negated by the first, assumes that Iran's program is moving at a leisurely pace and that the mullahs aren't feverishly working to produce a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible. I don't think I'd be so quick to make that assertion.

The left is actively marketing the idea that Iran is at least 10 years away from a viable nuclear weapon. Given that our own Manhattan Project started in 1939 and culminated in mushroom clouds over Japan only six years later, I find that notion highly suspect.