Chaim, because Israel and the United States have waited so long to do what should have been done five or six years ago, Iran now has a pretty sizeable arsenal of modern Russian SAMs, such as the Tor system. Granted, Muzzie nations are not all that effective with their newfangled hardware (though Iran is probably sharper and more sophisticated than any Arab nation), but the fact that they have this system at all is at least conceivably a threat to Israeli pilots. Don't forget that there may be Russian "advisors" at the helm of their flak stations as well. Chaim, how big a deal do you think Iran's air defenses are?