An elaborate ruse, perhaps, cooked up by U.S. and Israeli intel to make Iran think we know less than we do? If so, it’s darned convincing: Adm. Mullen’s comments a few days ago about the inadvisability of an attack sure sounded sincere, and even Joe Lieberman conceded this morning that there’s a “caution light” flashing from the Pentagon in reply to Jack Reed insisting that in fact the light is red. Who’s ready for $12/gallon gas and a Middle East off the hinge in exchange for setting back Iran’s nuke program maybe three years?
Pentagon chiefs fear that Israeli plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear programme will fail to destroy the facilities because neither the CIA nor Mossad knows where every base is located…
Gaps in the intelligence on the precise location and vulnerabilities of Iran’s facilities emerged during recent talks between Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Israeli generals, according to an official familiar with the discussions who has briefed Iran experts in Washington and London…
“The Americans had spies in Iran until they were rounded up in 2003 and now they do not have much by way of humint [human intelligence] on the ground. The Israelis have better information. But the Americans went away from the meetings unconvinced that the Israelis have enough intelligence on where to strike, and with little confidence that they will be able to destroy the nuclear programme.”
Left unmentioned is the fact that even if Israel does know where every last nuke site in Iran is and somehow manages to put a bomb on the target, there’s no guarantee that any major damage will be done. Do note the contradiction, though, between the idea that attacking Iran is futile because at least part of their nuclear infrastructure is secret and the idea that we don’t need to act now because western intel assures us they’re still years away from having a bomb. Both are staples of dovish arguments, which makes no sense. Either you think we know the extent of Iran’s program and can time our response accordingly or you don’t think we know, in which case we have to err on the side of caution by assuming the worst and acting sooner. How can anti-war types maintain both positions simultaneously? Simple — because they’re willing to let Iran have the bomb in order to avoid another war. That’s been their position all along but they can’t push it in those terms or else they’ll be seen, rightly, as weak and it’ll wreck the Democrats’ chances yet again. Unfortunately for them, Israel isn’t as willing, so someone had really better start pressing Obama and McCain to hash out their contingency plans for the aftermath of an IAF attack. The Democratic Party might be ready to gamble on a nuclear-armed Iran behaving like a Cold War rational actor, but Kadima surely is not.
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