This Is Too Scary to Contemplate

It really is. You think 9/11 changed everything? It changed nothing. This would change everything. To say we'd be counting down to the Apocalypse would hardly be too strong.

Ok, here goes. An article from today's (Sunday's) Washington Post: "U.S. Is Studying Strike Options on Iran".

The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts.

Big deal, right. Nothing we didn't already know. Miles (A View from the Right) was telling us about it last week, and he was telling us not to worry. It ain't gonna happen. Or not right away. We've got all those troops tied up in Iraq (which is right next store, however). And the Post seems to agree. With a warning.

No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat "to convince them this is more and more serious," as a senior official put it.

But read all the way through. About three-quarters of the way through, are these little nuggets.

The U.S. government has taken some preliminary steps that go beyond planning. The Washington Post has reported that the military has been secretly flying surveillance drones over Iran since 2004 using radar, video, still photography and air filters to detect traces of nuclear activity not accessible to satellites. Hersh reported that U.S. combat troops have been ordered to enter Iran covertly to collect targeting data, but sources have not confirmed that to The Post.

Israel is preparing, as well. The government recently leaked a contingency plan for attacking on its own if the United States does not, a plan involving airstrikes, commando teams, possibly missiles and even explosives-carrying dogs. Israel, which bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 to prevent it from being used to develop weapons, has built a replica of Natanz, according to Israeli media, but U.S. strategists do not believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear weapons.

Israel, which has nukes itself, is not going to sit around and wait for a belligerent Arab state to develop some. They took out an Iraqi plant in '81, and they'll do it again, if nobody else will. (And don't forget, the new President of Iran had publicly called for the destruction of Israel.) But wait. Read that last bit again. "U.S. strategists do not believe Israel has the capacity to accomplish the mission without nuclear weapons."

Does this mean that Israel would use nuclear weapons? If they do? Do you think Pakistan stays on the sidelines very long? What about Al Qaeda, and the hundreds of other tiny terrorist groups out there. Think they'll be riled up? Think they'll limit their anger to Israel?

But wait! There's more. Read a couple more paragraphs down, and here's another little nugget, buried way down in the story: oh, by the wa-ay. . .

Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices. The Natanz facility consists of more than two dozen buildings, including two huge underground halls built with six-foot walls and supposedly protected by two concrete roofs with sand and rocks in between, according to Edward N. Luttwak, a specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"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."

Hell-o! We just might use some nuclear weapons on an Islamic country. Can you say jihad? Can you say fatwa?


You don't have to try to read between the lines in the Washington Post, though. Pick up this week's edition of The New Yorker. There's an interesting, pants-crapping article by Seymour Hersch, with more details about the strike plans in Iran. If you don't have the time or inclination to read the whole seven pages (hey -- it's only the possible destruction of civilization and possibly the human race that we're talking about), maybe you could spare 12 and a half minutes to see Hersch interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition.