The author also mentions this about any American strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure:
We have seen recently the leaking of the broad outlines of Pentagon planning, calling for the destruction not only of Iran’s air defenses and nuclear facilities, but the destruction of a wide range of military facilities. To hobble Iran military. To prevent Iran from meddling in Iraq, from menacing shipping in the Persian Gulf, from threatening its Arab neighbors across the gulf, from coming to dominate some of the most valuable and strategically important real estate in the world.
This certainly reflects my thinking, as I wrote here.
My post was a change from my earlier assumptions based on what was clearly our success in 1998 against Iraq's WMD infrastructure. President Clinton had promised only a year or so setback on Iraq's programs, but it seems to have pretty much halted complicated work. As I wrote in that post a year and a half ago:
I had assumed something on the order of Desert Fox. Apparently not. It will take more than I thought despite what I assumed are far greater military capabilities since Desert Fox. Given this need for a long campaign, there is no way in the world the Israelis can pull this off short of using nukes. They simply don't have the capability even if we wanted to subcontract the dirty work to them.
So something more was required. Weeks of attacks, as Hanson wrote. So I set forth the objectives we'd have to set:
So we must do the job. And the situation is worse than Hanson relates, I think. Even a Desert Fox-scale campaign could be directed solely at Iran's nuclear facilities. But once the campaign goes on weeks we must consider how Iran will fight back.
Iran could interdict the Strait of Hormuz; strike US forces in Iraq or Afghanistan; invade Iraq; fire missiles at Israel--possibly chemical or biological; strike Saudi and Kuwaiti oil facilities; and cut off their own oil exports.
So in an effort to stop Iran from widening the war on their initiative in ways that could harm us or our allies, we have to widen the war right off the bat.
The list of target I lay out is extensive and would result in many Iranian casualties. Mostly armed regime supporters but also regular military forces (which may have less invested in the mullah regime) and civilians (because Iran puts targets among civilians). So what of this option?
This looks an awful lot like a war and not just a clean airstrike. Which is why my preference is to support internal forces for regime change. Lots, if not most, Iranians hate their government. But my first preference may not be possible. Either from our inability or from the lack of a determined internal opposition ready to fight for their future.
This still looks an awful lot like war and nothing is surgical about it.
But if the alternative is continuing the fruitless negotiations option with Iran, which can surely be described as an unwinnable quagmire at this point, a war is the only way to stop Iran from getting atomic weapons. Unless you have confidence that our CIA can spark a revolt against the mullahs, perhaps supported by Iran's regular armed forces, only war will stop the mullahs from going nuclear.
I thought we all agreed on the need to prevent Iran from getting atomic weapons, at least.
This is an enormously difficult problem. There is no easy solution. Heck, I'm grateful we have an option that provide a solution or even just more time until we can find a solution.
