smashing Iran
U.S. plans envision broad attack on Iran: analyst
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. contingency planning for military action
against Iran’s nuclear program goes beyond limited strikes and would
effectively unleash a war against the country, a former U.S.
intelligence analyst said on Friday.
“I’ve seen some of the planning … You’re not talking about a
surgical strike,” said Wayne White, who was a top Middle East analyst
for the State Department’s bureau of intelligence and research until
March 2005.
“You’re talking about a war against Iran” that likely would
destabilize the Middle East for years, White told the Middle East
Policy Council, a Washington think tank.
“We’re not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of
targets inside Iran. We’re talking about clearing a path to the
targets” by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo
submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S.
warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran’s ballistic missile
capability, White said.
“I’m much more worried about the consequences of a U.S. or Israeli
attack against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure,” which would prompt
vigorous Iranian retaliation, he said, than civil war in Iraq, which
could be confined to that country.
President George W. Bush has stressed he is seeking a diplomatic
solution to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.
But he has not taken the military option off the table and his recent
rhetoric, plus tougher financial sanctions and actions against
Iranian involvement in Iraq, has revived talk in Washington about a
possible U.S. attack on Iran.
The Bush administration and many of its Gulf allies have expressed
growing concern about Iran’s rising influence in the region and the
prospect of it acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Middle East expert Kenneth Katzman argued “Iran’s ascendancy is not
only manageable but reversible” if one understands the Islamic
republic’s many vulnerabilities.
Tehran’s leaders have convinced many experts Iran is a great nation
verging on “superpower” status, but the country is “very weak …
(and) meets almost no known criteria to be considered a great
nation,” said Katzman of the Library of Congress’ Congressional
Research Service.
The economy is mismanaged and “quite primitive,” exporting almost
nothing except oil, he said.
Also, Iran’s oil production capacity is fast declining and in terms
of conventional military power, “Iran is a virtual non-entity,”
Katzman added.
The administration, therefore, should not go out of its way to
accommodate Iran because the country is in no position to hurt the
United States, and at some point “it might be useful to call that
bluff,” he said.
But Katzman cautioned against early confrontation with Iran and said
if there is a “grand bargain” that meets both countries’ interests,
that should be pursued.