Iran: war by October?
Paul Rogers
20 - 4 - 2006
Washington's political timetable may turn harsh rhetoric into military escalation, unless voices of restraint in both the United States and Iran can prevail.
Seymour Hersh's recent New Yorker article on the risk of war between the United States and Iran contained many insights into the current thinking of US political and military leaders. The one that has attracted most attention was the desire of figures on the political side to keep the "nuclear option" on the table, even in the face of reported opposition from some military planners (see "The Iran plans", New Yorker, 17 April 2006).
The idea of using tactical nuclear weapons in an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities may seem almost unbelievable, but it is not too far removed from the "war-fighting" ideas that have been around the nuclear-weapons establishment ever since Hiroshima (see "The nuclear-weapons gambit", 13 April 2006). Meanwhile, there have been repeated press reports that the Iranians are attempting to protect their key facilities by placing them so far underground as to be beyond the limits of conventional munitions. ...
Continued at Open Democracy
