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that, I think,” replied Cohen.
    “So let me summarize our situation,” Zvi Avner continued. The pen in his hand slashed through the stale haze of the prime minister’s Cohiba cigar. “We have four primary targets and another two dozen secondary targets. Three of the primary targets all have underground components. We are relying on a weapon we do not yet have for the underground targets and even if we had this weapon, it will only work for sure against one of the three targets on our list. We face an integrated air defense network that will need to be suppressed in the first wave. The combination of air defense suppression and the number of targets means we will need virtually all of our F-15 and F-16 aircraft for the first sortie. Even with this, as we sit here now, we do not have a way to destroy Fordow or the Isfahan tunnels. In fact, we cannot destroy Natanz today – not until we get the GBU-28s delivered from the United States.
    “By the time our air force returns to its bases in Israel, there will be rockets landing all over the country, including Tel Aviv. The people will be screaming for action against Hezbollah and Hamas. The cry will be even louder than three years ago. And even if you assume that we can go back to Persia for another sortie, this impacts our planning considerably. We have the ability to shut down the Persian air defense network in a way that leaves me confident for the first sortie, especially if we achieve tactical surprise. But the turnaround time is at best five hours. In those five hours, the Persians will regroup. They will repair anything we have done to them that they can repair and they will have units on alert that were asleep during round one. This means that when we go back, I will have to dedicate more aircraft to air defense suppression than during the first wave. With the loss of tactical surprise, I will have a much wider set of targets to deal with that have nothing to do with their nuclear program. I am saying that in the second wave we will be focused on airfields and C-two nodes that we can ignore if we are only over Persia one time. This will be the entire effort. So two times means we have to go back more times. In fact, if the plan from the start is that we are going to Persia more than once, it changes what we will do on the first sortie. The first wave will have to overwhelmingly be geared to suppression and destruction of the defense network and C-two.
    “As if that is not bad enough, I will point out the obvious if you are not already ahead of me. Every time we have to go back, we have to overfly at least two of our close Arab allies. How exactly do you think that will go over?” Avner answered his own question. “It is one thing for the Saudis to claim that they didn’t pick us up on radar as we sen d four hundred planes over Persia, but I am quite sure that they will not be able to make that claim the second time around.”
    It was Raibani who finally jumped in. “Your point is well made, Zvi. I have to say that the last issue is absolutely right. Politically, the Jordanians and Saudis won’t be able to make excuses for inaction more than once. And that assumes that the U.S. Air Force will be conveniently quiet as we fly – something that never concerned me until hearing today about the attitude of the new president.”
    Avner nodded his head. He knew from experience that if he had sold Benjamin Raibani, then the prime minister was sold. And if the prime minister was sold, then the rest of the Kitchen Cabinet would be on board. “The reality is that to obtain our strategic objective we need multiple sorties,” Avner continued. “But we are clearly constrained to just one initial sortie.”
    “So what are you saying?” Eli Cohen asked.
    “I am saying, Mister Prime Minister, that we cannot achieve our strategic objective without the United States Air Force.”

3 – The Nuclear Option
     
    “I can’t accept this,” said Mordechai Yaguda to the rest