Seymour Hersh's Iran fantasy

AFP:

The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine reported in its April 17 issue.

The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.

“That’s the name they’re using,” the report quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying.

A senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted in the article as saying that “this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war.”

The former intelligence officials depicts planning as “enormous,” “hectic” and “operational,” Hersh writes.

One former defense official said the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government,” The New Yorker pointed out.

...

One of the options under consideration involves the possible use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, to insure the destruction of Iran’s main centrifuge plant at Natanz, Hersh writes.

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There is a problem with this "option." Congress denied funding for the nuclear bunker buster a couple of years ago. It does not exist, unfortunately. It should also be noted that a sustained bombing campaign would not be for the purpose of humiliating the ayatollahs. It would be for the purpose of destroying Iran's ability to make war. Their humiliation would be possible collateral damage of the good kind.

This story has all the classic Hersh paranoia wrapped up into breathless nonsense. While the US would be prudent to develop a war plan against Iran, Just as Iran is no doubt developing one of its own, there are several intermediate steps that Hersh skips over. We will waste several months watching the UN dither. There will be a build up of US navel and air force assets in the area. There will be a final ultimatum. None of this will be missed by the media. Hersh must have many friends with active imaginations.

There is one part of his story that makes sense. The sustained bombing program. It whould not be limited to the nuke facilities. The first target will in all likelyhood be Iran's air defenses. Once domination of the air has been established, the bombing campaign will begin in earnest.