“Everything we have to do has to have an objective,” Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force’s chief of staff, told reporters at a breakfast meeting Wednesday. “What is the objective? Is it to eliminate [Iran’s nuclear program]? Is it to delay? Is it to complicate? What is the national security objective?”
“There’s a tendency for all of us to go tactical too quickly, and worry about weaponeering and things of that nature,” Schwartz continued. “Iran bears watching” is about as far as the top Air Force officer was willing to go.
It also sounded like Schwartz had thought carefully about what a bombing campaign aimed at suspected Iranian nuclear facilities would actually look like. “Our obligation is to provide the President and the civilian leadership options,” Schwartz said. “We have done that. And there are others in the government who have provided non-military options — financial, diplomatic, informational and so on.”
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