Going to war with Iran

Here's Seymour Hersh's article from the New Yorker on whether Bush would/will go to war with Iran and, even worse, use "tactical" nuclear weapons to do it (from Cheryl at Whirled View). We're talking serious loss of life once again, nuclear and political fallout, and enormous consequences for not only Iran, but the US and the rest of the world. Tell me what you think. Some select passages:

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”...

“This is much more than a nuclear issue,” one high-ranking diplomat told me in Vienna. “That’s just a rallying point, and there is still time to fix it. But the Administration believes it cannot be fixed unless they control the hearts and minds of Iran. The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next ten years.”...

“The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

Bush is, to put it as honestly as possible, insane. This is a man with little intellectual capacity, an ego the size of the pearly gates of Heaven, and a sense that he is himself the Second Coming. Next up will be specially designed robes more fit for an emperor. But he'll be gone in two years. What matters is how many further disasters he leaves in his wake. And here we go...

Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars...

The lack of reliable intelligence leaves military planners, given the goal of totally destroying the sites, little choice but to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons. “Every other option, in the view of the nuclear weaponeers, would leave a gap,” the former senior intelligence official said. “ ‘Decisive’ is the key word of the Air Force’s planning. It’s a tough decision. But we made it in Japan.”

Even some at the Pentagon are very worried. But we saw this same dispute a few years ago. Obviously, there's much more on the line now than with Iraq through the very real consideration of using nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon adviser on the war on terror confirmed that some in the Administration were looking seriously at this option, which he linked to a resurgence of interest in tactical nuclear weapons among Pentagon civilians and in policy circles. He called it “a juggernaut that has to be stopped.” He also confirmed that some senior officers and officials were considering resigning over the issue. “There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries,” the adviser told me. “This goes to high levels.” The matter may soon reach a decisive point, he said, because the Joint Chiefs had agreed to give President Bush a formal recommendation stating that they are strongly opposed to considering the nuclear option for Iran. “The internal debate on this has hardened in recent weeks,” the adviser said. “And, if senior Pentagon officers express their opposition to the use of offensive nuclear weapons, then it will never happen.”

But this is regime change once again; not directly a problem with a nuclear weapons program, after all.

The Pentagon adviser said that, in the event of an attack, the Air Force intended to strike many hundreds of targets in Iran but that “ninety-nine per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation. There are people who believe it’s the way to operate”—that the Administration can achieve its policy goals in Iran with a bombing campaign, an idea that has been supported by neoconservatives...

As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.” The broader aim, the consultant said, is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime...

Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. “The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically,” the European intelligence official told me. “He will benefit politically from American bombing. You can do it, but the results will be worse.” An American attack, he said, would alienate ordinary Iranians, including those who might be sympathetic to the U.S. “Iran is no longer living in the Stone Age, and the young people there have access to U.S. movies and books, and they love it,” he said. “If there was a charm offensive with Iran, the mullahs would be in trouble in the long run.”

And then there's the mode of counterattack - terrorism - which the administration has shown that it is either willing to allow or cannot control.

Iran could also initiate a wave of terror attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, with the help of Hezbollah. On April 2nd, the Washington Post reported that the planning to counter such attacks “is consuming a lot of time” at U.S. intelligence agencies. “The best terror network in the world has remained neutral in the terror war for the past several years,” the Pentagon adviser on the war on terror said of Hezbollah. “This will mobilize them and put us up against the group that drove Israel out of southern Lebanon. If we move against Iran, Hezbollah will not sit on the sidelines. Unless the Israelis take them out, they will mobilize against us.”...

The adviser went on, “If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle.” The American, British, and other coalition forces in Iraq would be at greater risk of attack from Iranian troops or from Shiite militias operating on instructions from Iran. (Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has close ties to the leading Shiite parties in Iraq.) A retired four-star general told me that, despite the eight thousand British troops in the region, “the Iranians could take Basra with ten mullahs and one sound truck.”

And here, from an AP article, is the White House's response:

"The president's priority is to find a diplomatic solution to a problem the entire world recognizes," Bartlett told The Associated Press on Sunday. "And those who are drawing broad, definitive conclusions based on normal defense and intelligence planning, are ill-informed and are not knowledgeable of the administration's thinking on Iran."

Cheryl, I believe, will have plenty to say on this. Jeffrey Lewis of Arms Control Wonk has also been doing a great job of examining some of the facts of Iranian nuclear development. He has his doubts about the technical utility of a nuclear attack here, partially in response to Hersh's article.

As for me, I tend to doubt the possibility of a nuclear attack on Iran. I don't think the Iran attack will happen. It makes no sense from any perspective. This is Bush doing some saber-rattling and then backing off, which is really the only option he has for dealing with Iran at this point other than sitting down at the diplomat's table. Nukes would be nuts, especially since Iran is not monolithic - there are democratic reformers, political positions of all sorts, different cultural positions, etc. It's a complex and rich country, even if Ahmadinejad also has a messiah complex. To reduce Iran to extremism alone and nuke it on that basis would be one of the most heinous human crimes ever committed, even if the strikes are "tactical." I can't think that members of the Bush administration don't know this.

BUT... I think we should also be prepared in the event of a US nuclear (or other) strike on Iran. The repercussions boggle the mind. It will also be time to take it to the Bush administration once and for all.

UPDATE (Monday, 6;25pm):

See also Rodger Payne's post on "The Vision Thing."

And Jim Kunstler's clusterfuck take.

And James Fallows in Atlantic Monthly (via Martin Kramer).

See also this proposal from two Harvard researchers for solving the Iran-US situation (via American Footprints).

And this piece in the New York Review of Books by Christopher de Bellaigue (via Coming Anarchy).