Are Israel and Saudi Arabia conspiring to start world war III?

Over the weekend I read possibly the most scary story I've seen for years.  If you believe the Daily Express, the Saudi Arabian government and the Israeli government are conspiring to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The internet is full of stories of conspiracies, usually put about by raving anti semites. Generally they are best given a wide birth, but as this story appears on the website of a respectable British newspaper which is pro Israeli, it deserves greater scrutiny and discussion.

Whilst I can see that both Israel and Saudi Arabia would both be keen to stop the Iranian plan to develop nuclear weapons in it's tracks (what sane person wouldn't), is it possible or even conceivable that they would work together on such an attack? However deep the Shiite/Sunni division may be, there is a deep antipathy towards Israel in the Arab world. The Saudi regime is not a democratically elected regime, it has a deep distrust of it's own people and a network of secret religious police who maintain the regime. Would this rather repugnant regime survive the outcry following such an attack?  I personally doubt it. In military and political terms, such an attack makes perfect sense for Israel. The Israeli's simply cannot let Iran under it's present rulers develop a nuclear bomb. If the Saudi's came in on the attack, it may castrate a deadly threat in the short term, but I suspect that  it will finish off the Saudi regime. What then? However bad I think the Saudi regime may be, we may well end up with an even worse regime, leading an Islamic Jihad and controlling the worlds oil supply. The west will have no choice but to go to war again, this time against the greater Arab nation. In short this could be the start of world war three. I'd say that the best way forward for the Arab people would be for the west to support progressive and democratic forces in these countries. The situation in Iran is a reaction to imperialist interference by both Great Britain and America of decades if not centuries. Do we want to have a similar problem in Saudi Arabia?

So what would I suggest. If I was involved in the security of Israel, I'd give the Saudi regime the widest berth possible. I suspect that sooner or later, we'll wake up to find that the Israeli air force has done the west's dirty work. I suspect that the best reaction possible for the world would be for the Saudi's to explode in mock outrage and then let us all forget about it. I'd suggest that the sooner this plant is bombed, the better, as there will be less nuclear fallout.

As far as I'm concerned the regime in Iran is illegitamate, corrupt and despicable. They cannot possibly be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. I just hope that whoever takes out the plants developing the weapons makes sure that they do it in such a way as to not start World War III.

Oh and for anyone who claims that the program is purely for civil power. If this was true, then the plants would have been opened up to universal inspection, without conditions. A party of Swedish (or suchlike) diplomats would have been despatched and they would have reported to the world that the program was purely civil.

I'd like a world free of nuclear weapons, if we can't have that, then I'd at the very least like to see regimes such as Iran denied the right to use them. I heard someone saying "Israel's had them for years, Iran needs them to defend themselves". This is the biggest lie of all. Whatever you may or may not think of Israel, there has never been any suggestion that they have a) threatened to use their weapons b) Sought to destroy any of their neighbours with nuclear weapons.

Whatever you think of Israel, Iran or any of the many issues which make this a very complex issue, the bottom line is that if the third world war is likely to start anywhere, any time soon, it's here. That is why all people of good intention should do everything in their power to diffuse this situation. We must all work to stop the proliferation of nuclear technology and we should all work to try and get the leaders of Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and all of the other powers in the region to act in the interests of the people who live there. I can't see any easy answers to these problems, but I passionately believe that Nuclear weapons are not in anyones interest.