Targeting Iran's nuclear threat

Washington Times ^ | Jan. 19, 2006 | Editors

[conservativecorner]

In technical terms, the U.S. military has the ability to inflict major damage to Iran's nuclear weapons program, potentially setting it back for years. That's the general view of military strategists in the United States and Israel.

Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld publicly confirmed that such a project has been contingently planned, and is doable.

Given that Iran's nuclear program is believed to be widely dispersed among dozens or more sites, some of them easily concealed and unknown to foreign intelligence agencies, it's not likely that military action short of overthrowing the current regime could eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat. Since Iran has a population of close to 70 million, almost three times the size of Iraq, it's extremely difficult to imagine any scenario by which the United States, with its armed forces stretched in Iraq, could assemble a coalition force large enough to effectively occupy the Islamic Republic of Iran. The most likely scenario is U.S. or Israeli destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities.

[boris]

We cancelled the "nuclear bunker buster" evidently because the Dems want Iran to be nuclear armed. With these weapons, a joint U.S/Israeli operation could do major damage and set the program on its heels.

Or we could say "F**k it" and just drop a 50-megaton thermonuclear device on Tehran.

Me, I kida like the second option.

This blather about "invasion" and "occupation" is gormless to say the least.

--Boris

[boris]

Sorry, "kida"="kinda"; I've not had my daily drip of caffeine yet today.

[libstripper]

We occupied japan but we didn't invade the home islands. Two nukes worked wonders.