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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6039135/site/newsweek/<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6039135/site/newsweek/>
 

War-Gaming the Mullahs

The U.S. weighs the price of a pre-emptive strike

 

By John Barry and Dan Ephron

Newsweek

Sept. 27 issue - Unprepared as anyone is for a showdown with Iran, the threat 
seems to keep growing. Many defense experts in Israel, the United States and 
elsewhere believe that Tehran has been taking advantage of loopholes in the 
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is now within a year of mastering 
key weapons-production technology. They can't prove it, of course, and Iran's 
leaders deny any intention of developing the bomb. Nevertheless, last week 
U.S. and Israeli officials were talking of possible military action-even 
though some believe it's already too late to keep Iran from going nuclear (if 
it chooses). "We have to start accepting that Iran will probably have the 
bomb," says one senior Israeli source. There's only one solution, he says: 
"Look at ways to make sure it's not the mullahs who have their finger on the 
trigger."

After the Iraq debacle, calls for regime change without substantial evidence 
of weapons of mass destruction are not likely to gain a lot of traction. But 
if the allegations are correct, Iran is only one of the countries whose 
secret nuclear programs hummed along while America waged a single-minded hunt 
for WMD in Iraq. Another is North Korea, which hasn't stopped claiming that 
it's turning a stockpile of spent fuel rods into a doomsday arsenal. And 
arms-control specialists are increasingly alarmed by Brazil's efforts to do 
precisely what Iran is doing: use centrifuge cascades to enrich uranium-with 
a couple of key differences. Unlike Iran, Brazil has never signed the NPT's 
Additional Protocol, which gives expanded inspection rights to the 
International Atomic Energy Agency. And unlike Iran, Brazil is not letting 
the IAEA examine its centrifuges. If the Brazilians go through with their 
program, it's likely to wreck the landmark 1967 treaty that made South 
America a nuclear-free zone. But the White House has shown scant concern 
about the risk.

The Iran crisis is more immediate in the eyes of the Bush administration, in 
part because Iran is among the president's "Axis of Evil." Israel, which has 
long regarded Iran as a more dire threat than Iraq, is making thinly veiled 
threats of a unilateral pre-emptive attack, like its 1981 airstrike against 
Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor. "If the state decides that a military solution 
is required, then the military has to provide a solution," said Israel's new 
Air Force chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Elyezer Shkedy, in a newspaper interview 
last week. "For obvious reasons," he added, "we aren't going to speak of 
specifics." U.S. defense experts doubt that Israel can pull it off. Iran's 
facilities (which it insists are for peaceful purposes) are at the far edge 
of combat range for Israel's aircraft; They're also widely dispersed and, in 
many cases, deep underground.

But America certainly could do it-and has given the idea some serious 
thought. "The U.S. capability to make a mess of Iran's nuclear infrastructure 
is formidable," says veteran Mideast analyst Geoffrey Kemp. "The question is, 
what then?" NEWSWEEK has learned that the CIA and DIA have war-gamed the 
likely consequences of a U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear 
facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, "The 
war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating."

Instead, administration hawks are pinning their hopes on regime change in 
Tehran-by covert means, preferably, but by force of arms if necessary. Papers 
on the idea have circulated inside the administration, mostly labeled "draft" 
or "working draft" to evade congressional subpoena powers and the Freedom of 
Information Act. Informed sources say the memos echo the administration's 
abortive Iraq strategy: oust the existing regime, swiftly install a pro-U.S. 
government in its place (extracting the new regime's promise to renounce any 
nuclear ambitions) and get out. This daredevil scheme horrifies U.S. military 
leaders, and there's no evidence that it has won any backers at the cabinet 
level.

The NPT has never banned uranium enrichment. That didn't stop the United 
States, France, Germany and Britain from offering a draft resolution at last 
week's IAEA Governing Council meeting, demanding that Iran immediately cease 
such activity. Other council members quickly challenged the provision's 
legality. Some members of President George W. Bush's own party are throwing 
up their hands at such clumsy doings. "This administration's nonproliferation 
strategy consists of flailing around with a two-by-four," says one disgusted 
Republican elder statesman. And even the administration must realize that its 
Iran options are limited now by the chaos already overtaking Iraq. 

The nuclear-armed 
planet<javascript:OCW('http://www.msnbc.com/modules/nuclear_balance/default.asp','int520x550','width=520,height=550');>
A look at arsenals around the globe

 

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.