Iran Strikes Risk Major War, Say Esteemed Foreign Policy Experts

September 13, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Leah Fae Cochran

Costs & Benefits - Extended strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities could delay Iran’s nuclear program, but at the risk of igniting all-out war in the Middle East, according to a new report endorsed by more than 30 former diplomats, retired admirals and generals, and top national security experts. The report, released by the nonpartisan Iran Project, is intended to provide clarity on the costs and benefits of the use of force against Iran.

-- “Planners and pundits ought to consider that the riots and unrest following a Web entry about an obscure film are probably a fraction of what could happen following a strike - by the Israelis or U.S. - on Iran," said retired Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold. Robert Burns of AP has a preview of the report. http://bit.ly/RU8jKr

--Report signers: Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Richard Armitage, Sen. Sam Nunn, Sen. Chuck Hagel, Gen. Anthony Zinni, Adm. William Fallon, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Berger, Amb. Thomas Pickering, Amb. Nicholas Burns, Amb. William Luers, Rep. Lee Hamilton, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Adm. Joe Sestak, Paul Volcker and many more.

Report Launch - Tweets @IranProject2012: Watch distinguished bipartisan group discuss military action against Iran here Woodrow Wilson Center Live Stream. http://bit.ly/PdXAIi

PDF - From the report: “We believe that a U.S. attack on Iran would increase Iran’s motivation to build a bomb, because the Iranian leadership would become more convinced than ever that regime change is the goal of U.S. policy, and building a bomb would be seen as a way to inhibit future attacks and redress the humiliation of being attacked.” Full PDF of the report here. http://bit.ly/OsvgoO

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Autopilot - “While [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu assails Obama for refusing to draw a clear line, he himself has not drawn such a line. Israel has not specified an activity or enrichment level it would consider a casus belli. The reason is obvious: Doing so would restrict Israel’s options and signal its actions and timetable to Iran. If it doesn’t make sense for Israel to do this, why would it make sense for the United States?,” writes Fareed Zakaria for the Washington Post.

-- “The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel not to act. But in doing so, it will have to be careful not to lock itself onto a path that makes U.S. military action inevitable. We should have a national debate before the United States finds itself going to war in the Middle East — again — on auto-pilot.” http://wapo.st/OJ0svA

Buyer beware - “It should come as no surprise that the current GMD system is a lemon,” writes Tom Collina of the recent NRC report on missile defenses. The U.S. spent $30 billion on the Ground-based Midcourse Missile Defense System (GMD), only to see it fail 5 of 7 intercept tests - with no tests since 2008 and none adequately addressing the problem of countermeasures. “Hardly reassuring.”

--Collina goes into detail on the reports findings, but notes that, unless the U.S. starts conducting tests against realistic countermeasures, we should not expect a better outcome spending another $30 billion on the NRC’s suggested new system. Full post at Foreign Policy. http://bit.ly/PeFi9x

Harder than powerpoint - “Given that the United States has not demonstrated a means of distinguishing a warhead from decoys or other countermeasures intended to confuse the system, the [NRC] report’s suggestion that the United States should plow ahead and develop a new interceptor or build a new deployment site for the GMD on the U.S. east coast is not sensible,” writes Laura Grego at All Things Nuclear on the conclusions of the recent NRC report on missile defenses. http://bit.ly/Pm9LRz

Remarks - “Growing Global Cooperation on Ballistic Missile Defense” by Frank Rose, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. http://1.usa.gov/Pm9vlr

The nun on the Hill - Much has been made in the media about the 82-year-old nun and two other peace activists who managed to break into the Y-12 security complex, and now Congress gets its turn. Two hearings this week- one for the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee and one for the House Armed Services Committee- will focus on the event and the oversight of nuclear facilities. Jeff Smith at the Center for Public Integrity analyzes how the event is likely to play politically. http://bit.ly/Q2ho0b

Language - In the wake of the security breach at the Y-12 complex in July, leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are seeking to remove language from the National Defense Authorization Act that would transfer oversight of nuclear facilities from the Department of Energy to the NNSA. The new language was added to the FY2013 NDAA by the House Armed Services Committee. Global Security Newswire has the story. http://bit.ly/QjQf9x

German pledge - A German newspaper caused a stir this month when it reported that the German government had seemingly reneged on their promise to seek the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from German soil by making plans to modernize the fighter-bomber tasked with delivering the weapons. A deeper analysis shows that Germany actually has no plans to keep the plane in service past 2020. Oliver Meier at Arms Control Now has the story. http://bit.ly/QMWNla