U.S. studying military options on Iran

[Balta1701]

Just like the country next door...more and more we're seeing these sorts of reports.

According to current and former officials, Pentagon and CIA planners have been exploring possible targets, such as the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Although a land invasion is not contemplated, military officers are weighing alternatives ranging from a limited airstrike aimed at key nuclear sites, to a more extensive bombing campaign designed to destroy an array of military and political targets.

 

Preparations for confrontation with Iran underscore how the issue has vaulted to the front of President Bush's agenda even as he struggles with a relentless war in next-door Iraq. Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.

Hopefully things won't even get to this point, but I found this to be the most disturbing part of the article; the military is saying there may be no way to do a military strike using only conventional arms.

"The targeteers honestly keep coming back and saying it will require nuclear penetrator munitions to take out those tunnels," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst. "Could we do it with conventional munitions? Possibly. But it's going to be very difficult to do."

[whitesoxfan101]

I found this story to be even more disturbing:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...xportaltop.html

 

The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, claims an investigative writer with high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts.

 

President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler", says Seymour rsh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

[Balta1701]

I read the Seymour Hersh story in the New Yorker, and decided it wasn't worth citing. Why? Because Sy Hersh published basically the exact same story almost a year ago, saying the U.S. was planning an attack on Iran over the summer of 2005.

 

Some of Hersh's sources may be right, some may not be, but right now, I don't see why I should 100% believe him right now, when he's saying teh same thing he said a year ago and giving me no more named sources than he did at that time.

 

The WaPo is clearly hearing something similar, but they're hedging their bets more than Hersh, so I ran with their story. But both places did say that nukes were on the table.

 

Edit: Here is Hersh's piece from early 2005 on Iran. He's been hitting the same chords for over a year now.

Edited April 9, 2006 by Balta1701

[FlaSoxxJim]

As far as I know, the thing about the Hersh piece that is new is the talk among some of the Joint Chiefs about resigning if the Administration decides to use tactical nukes.

 

The administration's line about "if you didn't want us to use that option why did you give it to us? . . ." I don't know. I think their use would be extreme as a first strike on a program that is 5-10 years away from nuclear weapons capability. But, I deplored that approvel was ever given to develop "tactical nukes," so I am obviously biased in my opinion.

[NorthSideSox72]

As I said in the other thread that went this way, the idea of any sort of "limited" war, or just air strikes, is idiotic. Iran will respond militarily, they border Iraq, Afghanistan, and are a very short distance from Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain... the result would be a large scale war, and that is the last thing we want right now.

[Balta1701]

As I said in the other thread that went this way, the idea of any sort of "limited" war, or just air strikes, is idiotic.  Iran will respond militarily, they border Iraq, Afghanistan, and are a very short distance from Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain... the result would be a large scale war, and that is the last thing we want right now.

The idea of a quick, easy, $1.7 billion war in Iraq was equally idiotic. And look where we are now.

 

Your biggest worry should be none of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, etc. Your biggest worry is the Straits of Hormuz. The Iranians have some decent anti-ship missiles, one of which they just tested. You sink 1 ship in the straits of Hormuz, and suddenly Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran all suddenly lose the ability to export oil.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

The idea of a quick, easy, $1.7 billion war in Iraq was equally idiotic.  And look where we are now.

 

Your biggest worry should be none of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, etc.  Your biggest worry is the Straits of Hormuz.  The Iranians have some decent anti-ship missiles, one of which they just tested.  You sink 1 ship in the straits of Hormuz, and suddenly Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran all suddenly lose the ability to export oil.

 

 

I really don't know which prospect is uglier, a nuclear armed Iran ( which by the way is cozy with Al Quada ) or an all out war which would engulf the entire Middle East. I really hope Iran backs off but something tells me this is going to get far worse before it gets any better.

[Balta1701]

I really don't know which prospect is uglier,  a nuclear armed Iran ( which by the way is cozy with Al Quada ) or an all out war which would engulf the entire Middle East.  I really hope Iran backs off but something tells me this is going to get far worse before it gets any better.

Something tells me that an all-out war in the middle east may already be inevitable. The Sunni states in the area are already starting to engage in diplomacy on their own, planning for what they'll do when the situation in Iraq finally starts to collapse, and they're deliberately setting themselves apart from Iran & Syria. These sorts of meetings are how battle lines are drawn.

 

Top intelligence officers from several Arab countries and Turkey have been meeting secretly to coordinate their Governments' strategies in case civil war erupts in Iraq and in an attempt to block Iran's interference in the war-torn nation, Arab diplomats said.

 

The four diplomats said on Tuesday that intelligence chiefs from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and non-Arab Turkey held a series of meetings over the last few weeks to assess the situation in Iraq and work out plans to avoid any regional backlash that may result from sectarian conflict in Iraq.

 

The diplomats in several Middle Eastern capitals, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Iran and Syria have been excluded from the talks.

 

"They are part of the problem, not of the solution," said one diplomat whose country is involved in the talks.