What should be done about Iran?

[Coito ergo sum]

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's national security advisers are considering a broad range of options to curb Iran's nuclear program, among them military strikes, if diplomacy and sanctions fail, Pentagon officials said on Sunday.

BARACK OBAMA

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, releasing a statement on Sunday about a secret memorandum he sent to the White House in January, said he identified "next steps in our defense planning process" that would be reviewed by decision makers in the coming weeks and months.

"There should be no confusion by our allies and adversaries that the United States is properly and energetically focused on this question and prepared to act across a broad range of contingencies in support of our interests," Gates said in the statement, issued to refute characterizations of the memo in a New York Times report.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday the military options available to Obama would go "a long way" to delaying Iran's nuclear progress but may not set the country back long-term. He called a military strike his "last option" right now.

The comments underscored the difficult choices facing Obama in trying to keep Iran from getting a nuclear bomb without setting off a broader conflict.

"It's very hard to predict outcomes there," Mullen told reporters after addressing a forum at Columbia University in New York.

Mullen said there was "not much decision space to work in because of both outcomes -- having a weapon and striking generate unintended consequences that are difficult to predict."

"I think Iran having a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. I think attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome," he added.

The Times reported on Saturday that Gates's memo was meant as a warning to the White House that the United States lacked an effective strategy to curb Iran's steady progress toward nuclear capability.

NUMBER OF PROPOSALS

In his statement, Gates said: "The memo was not intended as a 'wake up call' or received as such by the president's national security team. Rather, it presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision-making process."

Mullen said Gates was leading policy deliberations within the administration that have had "great focus for years, not months."

"This is as complex a problem as there is in our country and we have expended extraordinary amounts of time and effort to figure that out, to try to get that right," Mullen said.

Mullen and Gates both support continuing the diplomatic and pressure track pushed by the United States at the U.N. Security Council, including a new round of U.N. sanctions aimed at persuading Iran to give up its nuclear program without resorting to military force.

A U.S. draft proposal provides for new curbs on Iranian banking, a full arms embargo, tougher measures against Iranian shipping, moves against members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and firms they control and a ban on new investments in Iran's energy sector.

"We in the Pentagon, we plan for contingencies all the time and so certainly there are (military) options which exist," Mullen said.

He said these military options "would go a long way to delaying" the nuclear program but said Obama would have to choose how to proceed if diplomacy fails.

"That's not my call. That's going to be the president's call," Mullen said. "But from my perspective ... the last option is to strike right now."

Mullen said that his "worry about Iran achieving a nuclear weapons capability" is that other states in the region will seek nuclear arms of their own.

"There are those that say, 'Come on, Mullen, get over that. They're going to get it. Let's deal with it,'" Mullen said.

"Well, dealing with it has unintended consequences that I don't think we've all thought through. I worry that other countries in the region will then seek to, actually, I know they will, seek nuclear weapons as well. That spiral headed in that direction is a very bad outcome."

Read More: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63H2UN20100418

[FBM]

Step one: Stop being hypocritical. If you want a nuke-free world, give up your nukes.

Step two: Admit the obvious. The genie's out of the bottle. We let it out. If we had the right to develop nukes, so do other countries, however whacked-out they are.

[RuleBritannia]

Bombing Iran is a great way of winning some new enemies.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

We want fewer "bombs" not more.

Why let other countries have them when we are trying to get rid of them?

[redunderthebed]

Why let other countries have them when we are trying to get rid of them?

Right.

[RuleBritannia]

We want fewer "bombs" not more.

Why let other countries have them when we are trying to get rid of them?

Well, bombing the shit out of Iran would reduce the number of their bombs and ours, two birds with one stone.

[Martok]

At one time I might have favoured bombing the crap out of Iran but with our military still involved in two wars and with our shaky economic situation (all Bush travesties)
I think we have no choice but to seek other options.

[Coito ergo sum]

Step one: Stop being hypocritical. If you want a nuke-free world, give up your nukes.

I don't mind that. The trick is making sure that the other folks don't have them too.

Step two: Admit the obvious. The genie's out of the bottle. We let it out. If we had the right to develop nukes, so do other countries, however whacked-out they are.

Well, if Iran signs the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear country, which they did, I would think that a general respect for international law would allow one to suggest to Iran that they kindly abide by it.

[Ian]

We could sit back and let Israel take care of business.

[Rum]

The thing about this situation is the possibility of there, in the end, there being no winning scenario. Attacking them could just spark a new Middle East war with Israel involved and god knows who else. The outcome of all that would be so unpredictable and potentially very messy indeed. Israel would use their nukes if backed into a corner I am sure.

If Iran don't give up their plans however and the rest of the world don't do something about it, they will be armed with it, as sworn enemies of Israel, dedicated to its destruction. Iran and Israel nose to nose with nukes? Sheesh.

Something therefore has to give.

I am tempted to think that one way 'out' is a change of regime in Iran, but that is grasping at straws. We know that from the Iraq experience.

Hold on tight folks.

[Clinton Huxley]

I think Britain should meddle in the internal affairs of Iran, bring down it's government and impose quasi-colonial ostrich-plumed rule. It's worked before!

[Ian]

one way 'out' is a change of regime in Iran, but that is grasping at straws.

Regime change would almost certainly have to come from within.

It's not beyond the realm of possibility; demographics seem to be on our side. They can't stay a hardline theocracy forever. I don't know if time will be on our side, though. It's all a matter of which one comes first: an Iranian Bomb, or a progressive government in Tehran.

[sandinista]

Step one: Stop being hypocritical. If you want a nuke-free world, give up your nukes.

Step two: Admit the obvious. The genie's out of the bottle. We let it out. If we had the right to develop nukes, so do other countries, however whacked-out they are.

exactly. No one country can tell another country not to have nukes if they themselves have them. That will never fly. Keep in mind only one country has ever used them.

[Twiglet]

Iran is just learning from Iraq. If you are sat on a large pool of oil, and don't want to be invaded, then you better set about developing a deterrent.

We've seen very clearly what happens to countries which have something America wants to steal which lack WMDs, after all. Iran with nuclear weapons would pose no strategic threat to anywhere because the retaliation for using a nuclear strike would be to wipe it off the face of the planet. If it developed nuclear weapons, it would, however, possess a significant deterrent against invasion, because it would have the capability to wipe out warships or military bases.

As others have mentioned, nobody has the moral authority to say Iran shouldn't develop weapons. Israel is estimated to have around 1-200 warheads and is in complete violation of the NPT.

[FBM]

Step one: Stop being hypocritical. If you want a nuke-free world, give up your nukes.

I don't mind that. The trick is making sure that the other folks don't have them too.

Yeah, verifiability is the fly in the ointment. Big headache, what with national sovereignty and all.

Step two: Admit the obvious. The genie's out of the bottle. We let it out. If we had the right to develop nukes, so do other countries, however whacked-out they are.

Well, if Iran signs the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear country, which they did, I would think that a general respect for international law would allow one to suggest to Iran that they kindly abide by it.

I'd have to be more up-to-date with current developments to respond to that. It's not a big news item over here. I remember some country or other claiming that their nuclear program was only for energy, not weapons. Could have been Iran. Or maybe Maldives.