Terrorism & Security
posted April 10, 2006 at 11:30 a.m.

Is US considering using nukes against Iran?

White House downplays media reports of plans for impending military strike.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

The White House spent much of Sunday downplaying reports in the New Yorker magazine by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh and in The Washington Post that it was planning for a military strike sometime this spring. The New Yorker article alleges that this strike could include the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The Associated Press reports that presidential counselor Dan Bartlett cautioned the public against reading too much into the administration's planning.

"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."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the idea of the use of nuclear weapons "completely nuts." The Times of London reports that Straw's statement was part of an effort to " silence saber-rattling" by hard-liners in the US administration. Straw said Britain would not support a preemptive attack against Iran, adding: "I'm as certain as I can be sitting here that neither would the United States."

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Straw said: "There is no smoking gun, there is no casus belli. We can't be certain about Iran's intentions and that is, therefore, not a basis on which anybody would gain authority to go for military action."

The Washington Post article quoted US officials and independent analysts as saying that the the Bush administration is studying options for a military strike as "part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program."

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.
Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making US troops in Iraq targets for retaliation.


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In his New Yorker piece, Mr. Hersh (who was one of the first reporters in 2003 to break the news about the prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad) alleges that contacts within the administration and the military have told him that while the Bush administration says it is pursuing diplomatic initiatives to stop development of Iran's nuclear program, it "has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack." Hersh says that Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to start a pilot program, which is scheduled to start this spring, and that Bush sees "saving Iran" as being the key to his legacy once he finishes in office.

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." He added, "I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, 'What are they smoking?'
The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush. "So long as Iran has an Islamic republic, it will have a nuclear-weapons program, at least clandestinely," Clawson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd. "The key issue, therefore, is: How long will the present Iranian regime last?"

Hersh also alleges in the New Yorker article that the plan to attack Iran is part of a long-term strategy the White House has for controlling the Middle East for the next decade.

"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."
A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. "This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war," he said. The danger, he said, was that "it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability." A military conflict that destabilized the region could also increase the risk of terror: "Hezbollah comes into play," the adviser said, referring to the terror group that is considered one of the world's most successful, and which is now a Lebanese political party with strong ties to Iran. "And here comes Al Qaeda."

Hersh writes that one of the attack options presented to the White House this past winter includes the use of "bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites." But over the months, the attention given to the nuclear option has alarmed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and some officers have talked about resigning. But whenever someone tries to remove the nuclear option "they are shouted down." The idea for the bombing campaign, whether conventional or nuclear, is strongly supported by neoconservatives in the Bush administration.

Maenwhile, The Scotsman reports that Iran denounced the report as part of a " campaign of psychological war." Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, said his country would not back down in the confrontation with the West, and the US in particular, over its nuclear program. Iran says it is developing nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes.

"We will stand by our right to nuclear technology. It is our red line. We are ready to deal with any possible scenario. Iran is not afraid of threatening language."

FoxNews reports that Stephen Cimbala, a Pennsylvania State University professor who studies US foreign policy, says it's not surprising that the US would have contingency plans for an Iranian strike, but thinks that the idea of military strikes is more for public show and to put pressure on Iran.

"If you look at the military options, all of them are unattractive," Cimbala said. "Either because they won't work or because they have side effects where the cure is worse than the disease."

The Associated Press reported Saturday that, over the protests of the US, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will go to Tehran this week to meet with Iranian officials in an effort to halt the country's uranium enrichment program. While the trip could defuse fears of Iran seeking nuclear weapons, it could exacerbate differences among the members of the United Nations Security Council.