Everything is a distraction from Iran. Everything. But I remember when Bush and Cheney were in charge and they looked at Iran and realized that their own military would revolt if ordered to attack it. So, Craphammer needs to shut his pie hole. He can be as dismissive of Obama’s non-proliferation efforts as he likes, but there is no acceptable military solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Experts agree that such an attack would do no more than delay their nuclear program and have completely unpredictable and dangerous consequences. Moreover, our best intelligence is not even sure that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. The following is from the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate:
• Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to
international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit
approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and
military costs. This, in turn, suggests that some combination of threats of intensified
international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its
security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might—if perceived
by Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear
weapons program. It is difficult to specify what such a combination might be.• We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo
the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage many
within the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’s
key national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerable
effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgment,
only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would
plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision
is inherently reversible.
Since 2007 there have been signs that Iran is still pursuing nuclear weapons, but nothing that could be called conclusive. Is anyone else sick of this constant whining that nothing is being done to (bomb) Iran?
