WarSclerotic

Military Force an Option Against Iran, Rogers Says – Businessweek.

October 16, 2011, 1:56 PM EDT

By Alan Bjerga and Susan Decker

(Adds Feinstein beginning in sixth paragraph.)

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Military force shouldn’t be ruled out as a response to an Iranian assassination plot on U.S. soil, the top House Republican on intelligence issues said.

“I don’t think you should take it off the table,” said Representative Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on ABC’s “This Week.” Rogers said other options would include rallying the international community against Iran or taking action against Iranian operatives in Iraq.

U.S. officials are considering what action to take following the Justice Department’s Oct. 11 accusation that Iran sponsored a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. The conspiracy involved a secret Iranian military unit and a citizen of the Islamic Republic with a U.S. passport.

President Barack Obama said this week that there were “direct links” to Iran’s government, which has rejected the allegation.

Two men were charged with conspiracy to use C-4 plastic explosives to murder Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir and attack Saudi installations in the U.S. Targets included “foreign government facilities associated with Saudi Arabia and with another country,” the U.S. said in a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan.

Increased Economic Sanctions

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she supports increased economic sanctions, especially against Iran’s Central Bank, with black lists of any foreign country or company that does business with the Central Bank.

Without some discussions to force Iran to change its policies, “we are on a collision course,” Feinstein said on “Fox News Sunday” program. “If we want to avoid it, we have to take action to avoid it.”

She rejected a call from retired U.S. General Jack Keane, an architect of the troop surge in Iraq, for the U.S. to engage in covert operations to kill members of Iran’s Quds Force. Feinstein said that, while Quds leaders were aware of the plot, there’s no evidence that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the highest ranking religious and political authority in the country, knew of it.

“It probably would escalate into a war, and the question is: Do we want to go to war with Iran at this time?” Feinstein said. “My judgment is no. We have our hands full with Iraq, with Afghanistan, with the deteriorating relationship with Pakistan.”

Ahmadinejad Rejection

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected the U.S. allegations in a Tehran meeting today. “Each day they try to campaign against Iran,” Ahmadinejad said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Khamenei warned the U.S. that any action taken will be met with a “resolute” response, according to the Associated Press.

“If U.S. officials have some delusions, (they must) know that any unsuitable act, whether political or security, will meet a resolute response from the Iranian nation,” the AP said, citing a report on Iran’s state television.

Iran has claimed that the Obama administration made up the allegations to divert attention from unemployment, the Occupy Wall Street movement and other economic problems in the U.S.

Feinstein said she had initial doubts before learning some of the details learned by investigators.

“There should be no doubt, and the evidence is very strong,” she said. “The FBI believes that the case is both strong and good and will result in a conviction.”

Rogue Nation

Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who lost the 2008 presidential election to Democrat Obama, criticized the administration’s handling of Iran, which McCain called “a rogue nation.”

The administration’s “engagement with Iran has clearly been a failure,” McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

McCain said Obama should have done more when students protested on the streets of Tehran in 2009. McCain called for “severe sanctions” and said the U.S. should engage in “covert activity” to undermine the current Iranian government.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican presidential candidate, said Obama is “absolutely clueless” in his dealings with the Iranian government.

“Our goal should be the replacement of the Iranian dictatorship,” Gingrich, from Georgia, said on the CNN program. “We have done nothing of consequence to systematically undermine the regime.”

Troops to Africa

Gingrich also criticized the president’s plan to send 100 troops to central Africa to help fight against Uganda’s renegade Lord’s Resistance Army. The troops are to “provide assistance to regional forces” and are not to directly engage with the forces unless necessary for self-defense.

Gingrich called the strategy “nonsensical” and said the administration needs “a grand strategy and a set of priorities.”

“If you can’t control the American border, why do you disperse our troops?” Gingrich said.

The White House was responding to 2010 legislation pushed by a group of lawmakers and human rights organizations that supported a comprehensive U.S. effort short of active military involvement to mitigate or eliminate the Lord’s Resistance Army threat.

The Lord’s Resistance Army is “one of the most horrible groups to inhabit the earth,” McCain said. Still, he said, “we’ve got to be very careful in how we engage.”

He also said Obama should have done more to notify Congress of his intentions.

–With assistance from Phil Mattingly and Kate Anderson Brower in Washington and Ladane Nasseri in Dubai. Editors: Ann Hughey, Christian Thompson.

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