Post was mangled last time, trying again -
Seymour Hersh's
long article from this week's New Yorker (which has already been referred to in the Wikipedia entry) appears to be written in support of the 'Realpolitikers' in the US ruling class.
The most important part of the article is the allegation that the Bush White House is seriously considering, at the political level, the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran, if Iran keeps trying to get a nuclear weapon:
"One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites."
"
don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”
{A} 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
So, we have it on the authority of a 'former senior intelligence official', and a 'Pentagon adviser', that the highest levels of the Bush Admininstration are seriously devoted to the idea of a nuclear attack on Iran. The article goes on to speak about growing disquiet - including at the level of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - within the military about this policy
I say such a policy would be impossible, and I also think that the Bush White House knows that. I believe that Hersh's sources are waging the 'Realpolitiker's' war against any futher armed interventions in South and South-West Asia.
Sources make a number of claims about the Bush Administration and current events:
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?’ ”
I 'd be worried if the White House really thought that anything other than 'boots on the ground' (ked up by tanks, artillery and aircraft) could make regime change happen. They knew it in Iraq, why would they have forgotten this very basic thing in a few years?
While almost no one disputes Iran’s nuclear ambitions, there is intense debate over how soon it could get the bomb
And yet Joseph Cirincione, the director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says
“What do we know? What is the threat? The question is: How urgent is all this?” The answer, he said, “is in the intelligence community and the I.A.E.A.” (In August, the Washington Post reported that the most recent comprehensive National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iran was a decade away from being a nuclear power.)
And
In Vienna, I was told of an exceedingly testy meeting earlier this year between Mohamed ElBaradei, the I.A.E.A.’s director-general, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, and Robert Joseph, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control. Joseph’s message was blunt, one diplomat recalled: “We cannot have a single centrifuge spinning in Iran. Iran is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and our allies, and we will not tolerate it. We want you to give us an understanding that you will not say anything publicly that will undermine us. ”
Joseph’s heavy-handedness was unnecessary, the diplomat said, since the I.A.E.A. already had been inclined to take a hard stand against Iran. “All of the inspectors are angry at being misled by the Iranians, and some think the Iranian leadership are nutcases—one hundred per cent totally certified nuts,” the diplomat said. He added that ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders “want confrontation, just like the neocons on the other side”—in Washington. “At the end of the day, it will work only if the United States agrees to talk to the Iranians.”
while
the Europeans are rattled, however, by their growing perception that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney believe a bombing campaign will be needed, and that their real goal is regime change. “Everyone is on the same page about the Iranian bomb, but the United States wants regime change,” a European diplomatic adviser told me. He added, “The Europeans have a role to play as long as they don’t have to choose between going along with the Russians and the Chinese or going along with Washington on something they don’t want. Their policy is to keep the Americans engaged in something the Europeans can live with. It may be untenable.”
The interesting thing here is how the allegations that the White House is seriously planning to use nuclear weapons hangs over the rest of the article. I suspect I am meant to infer that the Administration thinks that nuclear weapons will be a good way to make regime change happen. And so one argument gets implicity criticised by being linked with the 'beyond the pale' question of using the Bomb on Iran.
I think that by suggesting that the Bomb is seriously under consideration, the sources are trying to imply that any suggestion from this White House is as of a crazed lunatic and can be safely ignored.
I hope the USA does attempt to destroy any Iranian nuclear program from the air with conventional weapons, not nuclear bombs. Another democratic revolution before January 2009 would be nice as well, but would be a lot more costly because that could not possibly be done from the air alone.
If you read the whole article, you will know the language that the US 'Realpolitik' Right are using to try to discredit the 'NeoCon' Right's policy of armed intervention to kick out dictators. Worth a look.
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