William Arkin on attacking Iran

William Arkin has been writing some of the more enlightening blog posts on the plans to make war on Iran, or, more precisely, to widen the Iraq War to Iran:

Cheney, Bolton and Rumsfeld might be making threats, and the parties might be increasingly painting themselves into a corner, but we are still VERY far from the point where Iran acquires a nuclear capability. Years. What is more, I would add that the diplomatic stand-off, the vigilance of the international community with regard to imports, and the threat of military force has forced Iran to make any clandestine nuclear program it might have even more hidden and secure, thus setting back the timetable even more. ...

No amount of commentary arguing that war is messy or that a strike would have grave consequences is going to convince this administration to forego action to forestall an actual nuclear threat from Iran. - 03/09/06

It would be better for the news media to stop speculating about an imminent strike and stop providing expert warnings of the difficulties associated with such a strike. It should focus instead on the administration's and the military's thinking on the subject. The reason is because even if the administration's "triggers" appeared tomorrow for "global strike" [on Iran] to be implemented, that is, if Iran announced it possessed a nuclear weapon, it would still [be] a terrible and dangerous course of action for the United States to immediately attack. - 03/08/06

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