Iran, Again

Lots of saber rattling in the Iranian situation this past week. First off, the Iranians conducted large-scale naval exercises in the Gulf from March 30^th until today. The exercise, code named “Great Prophet,” featured the unveiling of new Iranian weapons, including a couple of “radar-evading” missiles, a “sonar-evading” torpedo and an “advanced” stealthy flying boat. People who know aren’t impressed. The WaPo has a front page article in today’s edition discussing the administration’s war planning activities. Seymour Hersh has written a load of tripe in The New Yorker magazine about planning for an upcoming nuclear strike on Iran. The Telegraph (UK) has a news article that picks up on Hersh’s charges, with an interesting graphic on the “nuclear bunker buster” weapon. The Seymour Hersh New Yorker article is here.

Hersh’s article contains the only real “news” in all of this, and his “news” is largely unsubstantiated and relies, as usual, on a plethora of unnamed “senior administration officials,” and unnamed civilian and military sources within DoD. Hersh also throws out the highly emotional charge that Dubya has a “messianic vision,” and that’s guaranteed to get the Left in a lather, each and every time. (Success!)

Of course DoD is updating our war plans – that’s their business and that’s what we pay them to do. It also follows that any war plan considers every possible option, including the use of nuclear weapons by either side. And when it comes to nuclear weapons, note that every article on this subject doesn’t discuss nuking Tehran, Qom, or Shiraz…in other words, we’re not threatening population centers. In fact, the only potential US use of nukes I’ve seen discussed is the use of tactical bunker-busters. I’d say that’s a reasonable approach, given the measures the Iranians have taken to protect their nuclear facilities. All this could be avoided if the Iranians allowed the IAEA full access to implement a comprehensive inspection regime. But they won’t, and we remain at risk. I, for one, take that idiot at his word.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.