The "Bomb Iran" Committee, starrring William Kristol and Joe Lieberman
Plan B for Iran:
What If Nuclear Diplomacy Fails? Semtember 2006
Military pressure has been much debated in public. The simplest concept is for the United States to mount air strikes on the known facilities that make up the Iranian nuclear power infrastructure: the centrifuge facility at Natanz, centrifuge production plants, uranium conversion facilities at Esfahan, heavy water reactor activities at Arak and elsewhere, the Bushehr power reactors, and other parts of the known program. (In addition, there would probably need to be some suppression of air defenses.) Obviously elements of the unknown, or covert, program could not be bombed or assaulted by special forces. Such unknown facilities probably exist: after all, facilities that are now “known,” like Natanz, were not known until 2001.
Destroying the known program would be effective in delaying the Iranian bomb if the known program is on a faster track to the bomb than the unknown program. If, on the other hand, the unknown facilities are closer to producing fissile materials and bombs than the known facilities, eliminating the known facilities would not delay Iranian achievement of nuclear capability. Most Workshop participants judged that the known
program was ahead of, and not behind, the unknown program. Thus attacking the known facilities would delay an Iranian bomb.
Delay...but not prevent.... In the aftermath of the destruction of its known facilities, Iran would probably try to hide or deeply bury its entire program, throw out
international inspectors, and press ahead at full speed. A single airstrike would therefore have an important delaying effect, but to continue to prevent Iran from obtaining the bomb, the U.S. would need to make repeated attacks whenever it discovered hidden
facilities.
How much time would a single attack buy? Suppose that the decision to break off talks and attack the known Iranian nuclear program was based on an intelligence assessment that after talks ended the Iranians would go full-bore at the known facilities
and would have a bomb in four years; that dragging out the doomed talks would only delay achievement of a bomb by an additional two years (for a total of six); and that after destruction of the known facilities Iran could rebuild its nuclear program to its pre-attack status within two years in the absence of follow-on strikes. In this case, mounting a single airstrike would offer no advantage over prolonging talks – even with the
knowledge that the talks would eventually fail. As another example, if rebuilding its facilities to the pre-attack level took Iran four years, the attack would result in a net delay of two years. In reality no such precision in intelligence is likely. Advocates of a single
airstrike would still need to do the arithmetic on the benefit of such an isolated action. Unless the delaying effect of a single strike can be shown to be significant, repeated strikes over years would be required to keep pushing back the date when Iran could obtain the bomb. Even repeated strikes might prove ineffective if Iran buries, hides, disperses, and defends its rebuilt program. It is difficult to see how a single attack
mounted on Natanz at this time, when the enrichment “pilot plant” is only beginning operation, could buy more than three or four years at most.
The repercussions of a U.S. attack on Iran’s known nuclear facilities under current circumstances would be severe. If military coercion were not preceded by a robust diplomacy that demonstrably failed through Iran’s fault and not in any way U.S. fault, the U.S. will be isolated internationally. The Iranian people would likely rally behind their government in the aftermath of an attack on their country, whatever the U.S. justification or level of international support. Additionally, Iran could react in several ways:
? Direct retaliation against U.S. targets in the region (including forces deployed
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere).
? Attack on Israel, directly via Iranian medium-range missiles like the Shahab 3,
or indirectly via shorter-range rockets launched from southern Lebanon.
? Terrorism via Hezbollah and other Iranian-trained groups that have not
targeted the U.S. directly in recent years.
? Interruption of Iranian oil supplies. This reaction would be a two-edged
sword for Iran, however, as noted above.
? Interruption of Gulf oil shipping. Iran’s military could also attempt to harass shipping with submarines, mines, small surface vessels, and land-based anti- ship missiles.
Iran Plan B Design Workshop
A Workshop of the Preventive Defense Project
Monday, May 22, 2006
- Attendees –
Dr. Deana Arsenian
Senior Program Officer, International Peace &
Security, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Mr. Rand Beers
President, Coalition for American Leadership &
Security
Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill
President, Barbour Griffith and Rogers
International
Dr. Ashton B. Carter
Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project,
Harvard University, Kennedy School of
Government
Dr. Patrick Clawson
Deputy Director for Research, Washington
Institute for Near East Policy
Mr. Charles B. Curtis
President & Chief Operating Officer, Nuclear
Threat Initiative
Dr. Stephen Del Rosso
Chair, International Peace & Security, Carnegie
Corporation of New York
Mr. Fred Downey
Legislative Assistant, Office of Senator Joseph
Lieberman
Mr. Robert J. Einhorn
Senior Adviser, International Security Program,
Center for Strategic & International Studies
Mr. Michael Eisenstadt
Director, Military & Security Studies Program,
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Dr. David A. Kay
Former IAEA/UNSCOM Chief Nuclear
Weapons Inspector
Mr. William Kristol
Editor, The Weekly Standard
Dr. Flynt Leverett
Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East
Policy, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Robert A. Mikelskas
Vice President, Center for Integrated Intelligence
Systems, The MITRE Corporation
Dr. Vali Nasr
Professor & Associate Chair of Research,
Department of National Security Affairs, Naval
Postgraduate School
Senator Sam Nunn
Co-Chairman & Chief Executive Officer,
Nuclear Threat Initiative
Dr. George Perkovich
Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace
Dr. William J. Perry
Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project,
Stanford University, Center for International
Security & Cooperation
Mr. Daniel B. Poneman, Esq.
Principal, The Scowcroft Group
Dr. Samantha Ravich
Deputy for National Security Affairs, Office of
the Vice President
Dr. Carla Robbins
Former Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, The
Wall Street Journal & future Assistant Editorial
Page Editor, The New York Times
Ambassador Dennis Ross
Counselor & Ziegler Distinguished Fellow, The
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Dr. Gary S. Samore
Vice President, Global Security & Sustainability,
The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation
Mr. David E. Sanger
White House Correspondent, The New York
Times
Dr. Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall
Senior Advisor, Preventive Defense Project,
Stanford University, & Adjunct Senior Fellow,
Council on Foreign Relations
General John M. Shalikashvili*
Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff & Senior
Advisor, Preventive Defense Project
Dr. Ray Takeyh
Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies,
Council on Foreign Relations
Mr. John S. Wolf
President, Eisenhower Fellowships
Source: Belfer Center
For more info on Dr. Samantah Ravitch, Dick Cheney's National Security Adviser, click on this link to the 2008 Herzlia Conference, held in Israel, where attendees included John Bolton, David Wurmser and Natan Sharansky and disgraced former NYT stenographer Judith Miller, who helped lie the US into invading Iraq.
No agenda or one-sided discussions allowed here!
Can a Nuclear Iran be Prevented?
Chair: MK Maj. Gen. (res.) Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel, Member, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
Mr. Norman Podhoretz, Editor-at-Large, Commentary Magazine
Dr. Patrick Cronin, Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies
Prof. François Heisbourg, Chairman, International Institute for Strategic Studies (France)
MK Brig. Gen. Dr. Ephraim Sneh, Member, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
Discussant: Dr. Samantha Ravich, Deputy National Security Advisor to the US Vice President
Can a Nuclear Iran be Deterred?
Chair: Prof. Alex Mintz, Dean, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, IDC Herzliya
Maj. Gen. (res.) Matan Vilnai, Deputy Minister of Defense
Dr. Adir Pridor, Head of the Institute for Industrial Mathematics
Dr. Jerrold Post, Director, Political Psychology Program, George Washington University
Dr. Shmuel Bar, Director of Studies, Institute for Policy and Strategy, IDC Herzliya
Dr. Oded Brosh, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Policy and Strategy, IDC Herzliya
This conference was and is a sham. Iran offered to talk with Washington, DC in 2003 and 2005 about their nuclear power progam, their support of Hamas and Hezbollah and offered to help in Iraq and both times, they were dismissed by the Bush White House.
It's evident that the warmongering Bush White House and their Zionist friends in Tel Aviv don't want to talk with Iran, unless the communications are delivered by B-2 bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Wonder how many of the people in that list are on the child molester list? It is well known that politicians in Washington are into that sort of stuff. Especially, their handlers.