Analyst foresees possibility of surgical strikes on Iran

[allemand]

MOSCOW. Jan 13 (Interfax) -

An armed operation against Iran over is nuclear program is possible, Alexei Malashenko, senior analyst for the Moscow Carnegie Center, believes.

"If the developments around the nuclear program continues in the same vein as now and if Iran's statements are followed by aggressive moves, the United States and Israel will feel that their hands are free," he told Interfax on Friday.

Unlike the large-scale war in Iraq, the operation will be limited to pinpoint attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. "Both Europe and the
United States may find the approach quite justified," he said.
(...)

"What President Ahmadi-Nejad is doing is meant to boost his reputation in the Muslim world. But he has put countries supporting Iran, including Russia, in a very difficult position. He had a chance to make concessions and present them as his own achievement without losing his allies," the analyst believes.

More:
http://www.interfax.com/3/120819/news.aspx

[MrModerate]

1. "Pinpoint attacks" on facilities now known to be dispersed . . .

To many many (possible hundreds) of sites around a huge country, lots of them in highly urbanized areas? Can you say "carpet bombing?" How about "act of war?"

This is the kind of hard-hitting, realistic appraisal of the situation that got us into Iraq.

[cantstandbush]

19. So only non-Muslim nations and Pakistan are allowed to have nukes?

Am i right about this? And we claim total authority to strike any nation any time who even says they want to have nukes ALTHOUGH we (the US) is the only nation on the face of the earth to ever have used nukes on another country---twice. And we used them at a time when the war was practically over and made no difference except to serve as an nuclear experiment on the Japanese people. And we dropped the nukes on...you got it: CIVILIANS

OK what am I missing here?

[ixion]

2. funny how when we attack a soverign nation it's called a 'surgical strike'

but if the same were to happen to the US it would be called 'terrorism'.

The hypocrisy is staggering, IMO.

[Ready4Change]

3. Pity our reputation has been trashed by this administration.

We could have the best intelligence in the world, know exactly what to strike, where, with the least force and fewest casualties on all sides. And still half the world would call us liers, and say such a strike is the leading edge of yet another Iraq War. And, knowing what I know of PNAC, I can't say they'd be wrong.

This Bush administration has sullied our nations reputation, severely hampering our ability to call for any international action with any legitimacy whatsoever. I suspect we are near a tipping point. If the US were to conduct a unilateral surgical strike right now I think it's quite possible we'd see many nations of the world girding themselves for war. War against the USA.

The Bush Legacy = A United States with the reputation of a 3rd World Junta.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Why exactly is attacking Iran justified?

[enigma000]

4. Would the security council authorize such an action?

The Americans and British would vote for it, no doubt. The French can't be pleased their negotiations with Iran over the last year has all but failed. I imigine the Russians don't want a radical Islamic state having nukes. At this point it hinges on the Chinese.

Its best if the US doesn't make the case; just leave it up to Europe to decide what action to take. Maybe they will participate in the bombing too.........

[UpInArms]

5. and I am just certain that Iran will do nothing if that happens

:sarcasm:

[Brundle_Fly]

20. Iran would have the grounds to attack

the US in Iraq, after sorties over their land to destroy government property.

IMO. I think this is classic baiting to elevate the situation in the Middle East.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Is it now ok to commit surgical war crimes?

Just asking.

[stop the bleeding]

7. here is a related article and discussion

Red Lines in the Iranian Sand--surprise nuke attack on Iran??

RED LINES IN THE IRANIAN SAND

By Praful Bidwai

<snip>
All this might only frustrate US efforts to diplomatically isolate Iran," said Qamar Agha, a Middle East expert at the Center for West and Central Asian Studies at the Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi. "Western Europe is far too dependent upon Iran's oil and gas to go to extreme lengths in sustaining sanctions that cripple Iran's energy generation. Therefore, the US might be tempted to use military force, jointly with Israel, to bomb select facilities in Iran."

In recent weeks, US Central Intelligence Agency director Porter Goss visited Turkey and briefed a number of other states in Iran's neighborhood on US plans for attacking Iran. Israel has already declared that Iran's nuclear program "can be destroyed".

The German magazine Der Spiegel wrote that Goss had asked Turkey to provide unfettered exchange of intelligence that could help with a mission to attack Iran. It also reported that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan had been informed in recent weeks of Washington's military plans.

And Israel's Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has nostalgically invoked his country's 1981 attack on Iraq's experimental nuclear reactor under construction.



<SNIP>

A former Indian intelligence officer, Vikram Sood, said that such an attack might use nuclear weapons. "A conventional attack on Iran would be expensive and not quite cost-effective. It would allow Iranian retaliation." To preempt retaliation, the US might use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran's underground facilities.

"The tragedy unfolding," said Sood, "is that if the US believes that its adversary possesses or has the intention to possess WMD , then it is justified to consider this a threat to itself and to US forces in the region. It must, therefore, act preemptively. The fear also is that unlike in the case of Iraq when considerable time was spent in building the case, this time the attack will be sudden and actual justifications will be given later."

Any such attack would break the 60-year-old, very welcome, taboo against the use of nuclear weapons - with extraordinarily negative consequences for global peace and security.

Such an outcome can only be prevented if the West moves away from coercive diplomacy to isolate Iran and opens serious talks with it, and if the nuclear weapons states rethink their own policies.

As the West accuses Iran of nursing nuclear ambitions, it has itself no intention of reducing nuclear arms. The US has embarked on a plan to expand its nuclear capability both upward, through "Star Wars", and downward, through bunker-buster bombs. Similarly, Britain has announced a $40 billion replacement project for the Trident missile.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. Oh wonderful.

That way we would occupy the first three (and only) slots for 'nations that have used nuclear weapons'.

[cliss]

10. I have some comments:

1) This analyst suggests the US will conduct a "surgical" air strike. Maybe dump 1,000 bunker buster bombs, or maybe drop a nuclear bomb on Teheran. There is never any reference to American armies marching in and "taking" the country, like Iraq. In other words, we would just bomb Iran into the Stone Age, and sit by and watch the destruction.

There are some problems with this kind of reasoning.

1) Why would we bomb Iran and not "take" it? Nobody believes that we have the manpower to march in and occupy the country. So we bomb Iran. What's the point? Are we going to beat them into submission?

2) Does the Pentagon really believe Iran will let itself be bombed like Hiroshima, and not retaliate?

3) Do they really believe the rest of the world will just sit by, and crochet pot-holders, while Bush drops bombs wherever he pleases?

4) It would be the ultimate irony if WE accuse Iran of having nuclear ambitions, and then we drop a nuclear bomb on THEM. When that happens, I'm moving to Borneo and I'll watch the mayhem from a distance.

This analysis has more holes than a Swiss Cheese. It assumes that there is no backlash. A dangerous assumption.

[daleo]

11. I think they hope the current "nuclear club" will go along

Probably they think the current nuclear club will coalesce around the idea of limiting the membership to just them. It seems doubtful - it would be hard to get everyone onside politically, and it may not be possible to limit the spread of atomic bomb and long range missile technology anyway. I am just guessing, but the general tendency in technology is to miniaturization and lower costs. Given that fact, I don't see how a 60 year old technology like atomic weapons can be withheld from the rest of the world forever.

[PATRICK]

13. The two edged sword

Iran is holding against its own throat is as puzzling. Nuclear threat means the facilities are ready yet possible to destroy, or they are years away and slipshod enough to tempt a strike. it seems ALL these things are playing not out to a bluff or success on any side except that on inevitability, a classic Tolstoy historical movement wherein none of the players really is in charge or understanding of what is set in motion.

Surgical strikes of any sort will precipitate more, not even a finale by PNAC plans, just another step that will lead at least to the occupation of Hormuz and then the oil fields. America will make its moves to take each step regardless of consequences or response until literally defeated. Pride guarantees it and analysts are over-thinking about people in charge thinking as rationally as they do.

[EuroObserver]

16. Sone of the latest "bunker buster bombs"

are tactical nukes these days, it seems.

"It assumes that there is no backlash. A dangerous assumption." Indeed. Such action will not be welcomed with flowers.

[bananas]

21. Seymour Hersh, Scott Ritter, and others have said

that the goal is regime change,
the administration believes that most Iranians don't like their fundamentalist government,
and that after we bomb,
the oppressed masses will rise up and overthrow their mullahs.

[Bridget Burke]

12. I wonder if those who claim "surgical" strikes are so great....

Have ever spent any time in an operating room. Conscious, that is.

Things can get pretty bloody.

[Pathwalker]

14. Armegeddon here we come! Gotta FORCE those prophecies

into "coming true", blackmail Jesus into returning to our chunk of rock!
If we strike Iran, it's Armegeddon, folks!

[colonel odis]

15. i'm sorry, but if the u.s. strikes iran unprovoked like that, i can't

in good conscience hope the participants come home safely.

i'm a human first, american second.

[Earth_First]

17. FYI: ANY attack on Iran would likely be a nuclear attack...

With depleted uranium used in a majority of ammunitions utilized by the United States, ANY major attack on Iran would be a nuclear attack. We're engaged in a massive nuclear war in Iraq RIGHT NOW!

We've rendered MUCH of Iraq and Afghanistan a nuclear wasteland from depleted uranium ammunitions.

[4dsc]

18. Iran would turn off the oil!!

If Iran is bombed they would simply turn off the oil. they suppy 5% of the world's daily total. I would hope that AWOlbush isn't really that dumb although he's demonstrated his stupidity in the past..