With all the talk of whether Israel will attack Iran, it is important to understand when Israel might feel it has no other choice but to act. Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli military intelligence chief, wrote in the New York Times that, "an Israeli strike against Iran would be a last resort, if all else failed to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. That moment of decision will occur when Iran is on the verge of shielding its nuclear facilities from a successful attack - what Israel's leaders have called the 'zone of immunity'."
The zone of immunity is most often discussed in relation to Iran's enrichment of uranium at the
Fordow site in the northwest of the country. Enriched uranium is a strategic material since it can be fuel for a civilian power reactor but also for a bomb. Fordow is still under construction although some centrifuges are installed. The danger for Israel is that it is under a mountain and thus well protected from air strikes.
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