4/9/06

'q' is for quagmire, 'n' is for nukes

This week's exciting new pastime in blogtopia sinister is trying to figure out what's the scariest thing in Sy Hersh's new article. My vote goes to this:
He went on, “Nuclear planners go through extensive training and learn the technical details of damage and fallout—we’re talking about mushroom clouds, radiation, mass casualties, and contamination over years. This is not an underground nuclear test, where all you see is the earth raised a little bit. These politicians don’t have a clue, and whenever anybody tries to get it out”—remove the nuclear option—“they’re shouted down.”

The attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he added, and some officers have talked about resigning. Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

The best case scenario[1] is that this is all bluster. The administration isn't seriously considering using nukes against Iran, but is making the threat in an attempt to bluff Iran into giving up its nuclear ambitions.

Suppose the bluff works. Then the U.S. will have succeeded in selling the idea that it is willing to engage in pre-emptive preventative nuclear first-strikes against uppity muslim nations. See victory, pyrrhic.

The worst case, obviously, is a whole lot worse.

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1 There's some noise on the right to the effect that Hersch is over-hyping what really only amounts to due-dillegence type contingency planning, and that may turn out to be the line that the administration decides to sell here at home. If true, this might indicate a better scenario than the best one I laid out. There is, however, this from earlier in Hersch's article:
Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as “over the shoulder” bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars.

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