Time for attacking Iran nukes is near?

John Bolten:

With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.

Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is almost certainly not.

He still wants "engagement" (a particularly evocative term now) with Iran's current regime. Last Thursday, the State Department confirmed that Secretary Hillary Clinton spoke to her Russian and Chinese counterparts about "getting Iran back to negotiating on some of these concerns that the international community has." This is precisely the view of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, reflected in the Group of Eight communique the next day. Sen. John Kerry thinks the recent election unpleasantness in Tehran will delay negotiations for only a few weeks.

Obama administration sources have opined (anonymously) that Iran will be more eager to negotiate than it was before its election in order to find "acceptance" by the "international community." Some leaks indicated that negotiations had to produce results by the U.N. General Assembly's opening in late September, while others projected that they had until the end of 2009 to show progress. These gauzy scenarios assume that the Tehran regime cares about "acceptance" or is somehow embarrassed by eliminating its enemies. Both propositions are dubious.

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Only those most theologically committed to negotiation still believe Iran will fully renounce its nuclear program. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has a "Plan B," which would allow Iran to have a "peaceful" civil nuclear power program while publicly "renouncing" the objective of nuclear weapons. Obama would define such an outcome as "success," even though in reality it would hardly be different from what Iran is doing and saying now. A "peaceful" uranium enrichment program, "peaceful" reactors such as Bushehr and "peaceful" heavy-water projects like that under construction at Arak leave Iran with an enormous breakout capability to produce nuclear weapons in very short order. And anyone who believes the Revolutionary Guard Corps will abandon its weaponization and ballistic missile programs probably believes that there was no fraud in Iran's June 12 election. See "huge credibility gap," supra.

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I think there will be no strikes before the end of this year. I also think there will be no talks before the end of this year unless there is a dramatic change of opinion in Tehran the chances of which are remote at best.

I am not optimistic that Israel can destroy this program or even set it back for a substantial period of time. The Israelis can probably attack the nculear sites, but they do not have the capacity for sustained attacks needed to wipe out the program and deal with other Iranian threats that will follow a strike. The Israeli strike will probably also trigger attacks on US forces in the area which might lead to sustained attacks by US forces, but most of those forces would take some time to get to the region, although some of our air assets supporting the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could be diverted.

I think it would take attacks lasting six weeks or more to reduce the Iranian capacity to effect operations in the Persian Gulf. How those attacks would effect the political situation in Iran is unclear at this point. The regime is acting like it is very fragile by suppressing all forms of dissent and killing those in the opposition. Would the attacks tip the balance or strengthen the regime? It is too soon to say.