Israel vs. Iran?

Apparently Israeli PM Netanyahu and Defence Minister Barak are trying to persuade their government to make a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear program.  See Yahoo! article.  Iran says that would cause a lot of damage to Israel and the US.  Meanwhile, a UK report says that Israel is trying to upgrade its nuclear capability.  And The Guardian (UK) reports that the UK is getting ready to help the US in a possible military attack against Iran.

Several Haaretz bloggers are speaking out against an attack:

• Israel's radical leaders forcing an attack on Iran
• IAF chief must save Israel from futile attack on Iran

I'm a bit concerned about this situation.  This wouldn't be the first time Israel has bombed another country's nuclear reactor.  Israel wants to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear capability and I don't know how far they will go to ensure that.  I understand that they don't trust Iran, but the general idea behind having nuclear weapons is not to actually use them, but to use them as a deterrent.  Like the Cold War between the US and the USSR. 

Yes, there are some crazy individuals out there.  People often don't realize that Ahmadinejad is NOT the Iranian government.  But I don't think even the real Iranian government would actually nuke Israel because Israel would respond in kind.  It's called Mutually Assured Destruction, and it's why the US and USSR generally fought each other through proxy wars. 

Maybe if more countries in the Middle East had nuclear weapons, Israel would actually sit down at the negotiation table and be willing to negotiate instead of demand.  And maybe then there would be peace.