to strike Iran militarily if it ever expects to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
Retired US politicians, generals and officials said in a report published last Wednesday that the best chance of stopping Iran’s assumed pursuit of nuclear weapons was to make clear American willingness to use force—but they stopped short of advocating any military action.
The report by a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) task force of Democrats, Republicans and independents comes out of a view that holds the Islamic Republic wants testy relations with the United States so it can grab onto leadership of the anti-American masses around the world, but does not actually want to go so far as to provoke war.
This view holds that the Islamic Republic will only fold its cards on the nuclear issue if it is convinced the Tomahawk cruise missiles will hit tomorrow and the US Marines Corps will land the next day.
The BPC report’s central thesis is that to persuade Iran to address questions about its nuclear program via negotiations, economic sanctions must be accompanied by a credible threat of military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“The United States needs to make clear that Iran faces a choice: it can either abandon its nuclear program through a negotiated arrangement or have its program destroyed militarily by the United States or Israel,” said the report, entitled “Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock.”
The fact that the report did not advocate war gave it credibility with the American center, which views any promotion of war with Iran as flaky and its advocates unworthy of respect. However, the advocacy of warlike gestures rather than actual war is unlikely to strike fear into the ruling circles in Tehran, where gestures rank supreme.
The BPC is a nonprofit policy group founded by prominent Republicans and Democrats that seeks to promote policy-making that can draw support from both major US political parties.
The task force members include: Chuck Robb, a Democrat and former US senator from Virginia; Mortimer Zuckerman, a real estate mogul, publisher and long-time Democratic Party backer; John Hannah, national security adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney; and Eric Edelman, a career diplomat who served at the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Among its specific recommendations, the report calls for:
• Strengthening the United States “declaratory policy” to make clear its willingness to use force rather than permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons;
• Intensifying covert activities by US and foreign intelligence agencies to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program;
• Bolstering the presence of the US Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman by deploying an additional carrier battle group [which was just done] and minesweepers off Iran, conducting broad military exercises in the region with allies, and prepositioning supplies for the possibility of military action against Iran;
• Strengthening the ability of US allies such as Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, to ship oil out of the region without using the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has threatened to close in retaliation for Western sanctions; and
• Amplifying US efforts to strengthen the militaries of countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates through arms sales.
Should these steps fail to dissuade Iran from its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons, the report urges the United States to consider a “quarantine” to block refined petroleum imports, which the report said is heavily dependent on imported gasoline. Actually, legislation approved last summer penalizes firms selling Iran gasoline. Iran no longer imports huge amounts of gasoline and, after a refinery modernization program advances, will need to import no longer.
As a last resort, the group asserts that the US military has the ability to launch “an effective surgical strike against Iran’s nuclear program.”
The report says such a strike would include an air campaign of several weeks to target key military and nuclear installations, accompanied by US special forces on the ground. But it did not suggest a full force invasion, occupying any Iranian territory or driving for regime change.
“A military strike would delay Iran’s acquisition of nuclear capability but not eliminate it,” the report said. “Still, policymakers need to consider whether delaying Iran’s program in the short term would allow Washington to take advantage of that space to stop Iran’s nuclear program altogether,” it added.
“It is also possible that the delays and increased costs that a devastating strike would impose on Iran’s nuclear program might be followed by a different set of dynamics that would cause or compel the Iranian leadership to change course,” it said.
The report acknowledged a strike would carry many risks, including higher oil prices, possible Iranian retaliation against US military installations, support of “terrorist” operations against US interests and potential attacks on Iraq.
Robb, who co-chaired the task force, told Reuters the group chose not to explicitly advocate military action in part because it did not want to turn what he described as a “reasoned, thoughtful approach into, ‘This is bombs away.’”
Having repeatedly said that a nuclear-armed Iran would be unacceptable to the United States, Robb said that to be unwilling to take military action would undercut US credibility.
“Our credibility is very much on the line,” he said. “We believe that we have to be credible with respect to the kinetic [use of force] option. We need to provide evidence that we are preparing to take that option if necessary.”
