WarSclerotic

DEBKA.

Last minute: In a dramatic U-turn showing Israel that Washington is serious about its military option against Iran’s nuclear program, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday, March 1, that “military options being prepared start with providing refueling for Israeli planes and include attacking the pillars of the clerical regime. They include the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its elite Qods Force, regular Iranian military bases and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in Washington’s first public reference to possible joint military action with Israel against Iran.
These comments came in response to an Israeli request to the Obama administration to finally set red lines for Iran’s nuclear program and abandon its “shifting red lines” option. Washington was also asked to spell out US military contingencies in place of the tired “all options are on the table” mantra.
Two days earlier, on Feb. 28, the never-ending spate of American evaluations rolling out these days – for and against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities – produced an odd AP news agency dispatch: Its correspondent on intelligence, Kimberly Dozier, wrote that Jerusalem had decided once and for all not to notify Washington in advance of an attack on Iran so as to save Washington from blame for not preventing it.
And then the article ended with this paragraph:
U.S. intelligence and special operations officials have tried to keep a dialogue going with Israel, despite the high-level impasse, sharing with them options such as allowing Israel to use U.S. bases in the region from which to launch such a strike, as a way to make sure the Israelis give the Americans a heads-up.
The proposition that America would let Israel use bases for an action against Iran to which it is flatly opposed merely to discover when it starts is, on the face of it, even more outlandish.
And why would the Israelis use American bases if they wanted to save America from blame?
However, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources, the AP “analysis” was far from foolish. Looked at sideways, its double meanings represented a trial balloon released by Washington to shed light on three sources of US anxiety, the foremost of which is whether Saudi Arabia and Israel have secretly gone back to military and intelligence cooperation for an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

Failure to complain would implicate Gulf nations in colluding with Israel
1. By the improbable offer of US bases in the region for an Israeli attack on Iran, the Americans hope to find out if any Persian Gulf emirates have got in first by secretly offering their own facilities for this purpose. If so, Washington would feel compelled to draw Israel back into the US fold by an offer of full American cooperation for abandoning its Gulf option.
2. The US does not have extraterritorial bases in the Persian Gulf. Before offering Israel the use of the Gulf facilities at its disposal, Washington would first have to ask the emirs for permission. So what was the point of making this option public?
Because that was another trial balloon.
The Gulf emirates which host US military facilities were expected to respond to the article by asking Washington for clarifications with assurances that Israel was not offered bases located on their soil.
The administration expected to be illuminated by a process of elimination: The Gulf governments which didn’t ask for clarifications would be presumed to be secretly cooperating with Israel in the run-up to a strike in Iran, with military or intelligence support – or other means.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources disclose that to date, three Gulf nations have omitted to query Washington on the AP article: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Our Washington sources were not surprised. Those very governments recently offered to place their air forces and air and naval bases at the disposal of a Saudi plan for military intervention in Syria. (See the separate articles in this issue on the Riyadh-Washington rift)
They would obviously be even keener to follow the Saudi lead for busting Iran.

Saudi air bases once offered for an Israeli strike on Iran
3. Saudi-Israel military and intelligence cooperation is not new – especially when it comes to working together to preempt a nuclear Iran.
Four years ago, senior Israeli officials held a series of secret high-level consultations with prominent Saudi princes, one at least attended by a prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to discuss the division of labor for an operation to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. National Security Adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who last year took over undercover operations against the Arab Spring, was part of the collaboration.
In this framework, Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, Director of Saudi General Intelligence got together with Israel counterparts, including former Mossad director, Meir Dagan.
Over the past four years, the Saudis leaked reports attesting to their willingness to grant refueling facilities at their air bases to Israeli warplanes heading to attack Iran and open them up for emergency landings by any Israel planes hit by Iranian anti-aircraft missiles or damaged in dogfights. Saudi medical services were made available in case wounded Israeli air crews required treatment.
These reports were covered extensively at the time by DEBKA-Net-Weekly.
One prominent item published in 2010 disclosed that Saudi Arabia had given Israel the use of tracts of desert land converted to landing fields with jet refueling facilities installed nearby.

Saudi-Israel cooperation back on track?
In recent months, Washington learned of a new round of meetings between the new Israeli Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo and high-ranking Saudi intelligence officials.
Washington was made additionally suspicious by the apparent overlap between messages addressed to the White House by the Saudi royal house and the offices of the Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Two out of three of those messages were almost identical: One called for the Obama administration to publicly warn Iran that failure to live up to preset terms for terminating its nuclear weapon program would elicit a military attack.
The other asked Washington to lay down red lines which Iran’s nuclear program was forbidden to cross – also on pain of a military strike.
The third message came exclusively from Riyadh and demanded American military action against President Bashar Assad of Syria.

Obama knows time is short for an Iran policy revision
President Obama knows time is running out for a decision on whether to accept or reject the demands for putting Iran on the spot coming from Saudi Arabia and Israel, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington sources report. Saudi patience with Obama’s reluctance to confront Iran is more or less exhausted, as Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when they met in Tunis on Feb. 24.
Disappointed with Washington, Riyadh has turned its face toward alternatives, he said.
Israel refuses to give Washington any commitments to hold off attacking Iran or giving the administration advance notice of one.
The US president also understands that the speech he is invited to deliver Sunday March 4 at the national convention of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) in Washington is one of the most important events of his career.
Disappointing the audience of more than 14,000 Jewish delegates from across the United States, who are hanging on his words in expectation of a new strategy on Iran beyond sanctions and diplomatic pressure – may cost him their support for his reelection to the White House. It would also doom his summit with Netanyahu the following day to failure, thereby boosting the prospects of a potential Israeli-Saudi partnership for striking Iran.

DEBKA.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Like President Barack Obama in Washington, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is deep in calculations for a fateful decision: Should he prepare his country for negotiations on its nuclear program with the five permanent UN Security Council powers plus Germany in April or for a US and/or Israel attack?
His third option might be a preemptive strike on Israel and US regional assets.
To help him decide, Khamenei commissioned a detailed and authoritative balance sheet listing the prospects and the risks of the various options from three government agencies: the Supreme National Security Council, the Revolutionary Guards intelligence branch and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence Services.
Khamenei’s personal intelligence bureau distilled the three reports and compiled a single, unified 32-page document which was presented to the Supreme Leader this week.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iranian and intelligence sources secured extensive passages of this document.
Its main conclusions, they report, are that the US will not risk attacking Iran until after the November presidential election – and only if Obama is returned for a second term. It will then be one of his first actions in early 2013.
The chances of a unilateral Israel attack are slim but cannot be ignored. The long-term effects of increased sanctions are cause for concern. But some of the conclusions are contradictory.
Surgical strikes followed by a long war of attrition

Tracing the history of US and international pressure to prevent Iran going nuclear, the document concludes that these efforts were never in earnest and betokened Western reluctance for military action rather than its resolve.
Another conclusion is that the US and Israel will not be satisfied with destroying Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure but will seek to stir the Iranian people into rising up and overthrowing the Islamic regime.
Contrary to some opinions voiced in the US that a strike on Iran’s nuclear assets would unify the country behind the regime, the report presented to Khamenei stresses the risk of it triggering a popular uprising which would sweep up all the opposition factions and ethnic minorities.
While ruling out enemy ground operations on the heels of aerial bombardments, the three intelligence agencies predict a protracted war of attrition lasting six months to a year to weaken the regime and undermine its regional and international standing.
They also expect advance “softening up” operations to be mounted inside Iran to foment destabilizing upsets such as large-scale strikes and shutdowns in the electricity, fuel, water supply and transportation systems. Then, the military blow when it comes will find the regime too shaken up to survive.
The report’s authors expand on the possibility of the enemy confining itself to surgical strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and missile bases so as to diminish the risk of Iranian missile counter-strikes against US bases as well as Saudi Arabia and Israel and the explosion of a regional war.
Iran’s enemies expected to continue to stir up domestic dissent

The report put before Khamenei weighs the outcome of secret negotiations between Tehran and Moscow, which DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iranian sources reveal here for the first time, for a Russian nuclear and aerial protective shield much like the US umbrella provided for Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Failure of these negotiations, according to the Iranian intelligence experts, would exacerbate the chances of a regional war.
Even surgical strikes knocking out parts of Iran’s nuclear program would give Iran the right to openly continue its development as the victim of a “vicious attack.”
No more than six months to two years would be needed to restore Iran’s nuclear capabilities to their former state, in the view of Khamenei’s top intelligence advisers.
The reports authors trace at length US, Israeli and Saudi efforts to stir up Iran’s restive ethnic and religious minorities against the regime – the Baluchis in the south, the Kurds in the North, the Arabic-speakers in the southwest and the Turkmen in the northeast. Although all these efforts fell flat, the West is expected to keep on strengthening the regime’s political foes.
Still, they expect the March 2 elections for a new Majlis to go smoothly and enhance the fundamentalist regime’s grip on power.

Russia, China join Security Council statement on Syria crisis – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

In rare move, longtime backers of Assad regime join other 13 members in urging Syrian authorities to allow UN aid chief to visit the country, halt humanitarian crisis.

By Reuters and Haaretz

The United Nations Security Council urged Syria to halt a humanitarian crisis taking place in the country, a statement said on Thursday, which was also signed by long-time Syria backers Russia and China.

In the missive, UNSC members said they “deplore” a rapidly humanitarian crisis, urging Syrian authorities to allow UN humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos to visit the country.

	The United Nations Security Council
	Photo by: AP

The joint statement came after the Red Cross indicated that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad finally allowed its officials to enter the war-torn Homs area, after rebel forces withdrew from the site of the weeks-long battle.

Russia, China and Cuba voted against a resolution adopted overwhelmingly by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council which condemned Syria for violations that may amount to crimes against humanity.

Earlier Thursday, activists indicated that most Syrian rebels pulled out of the besieged Baba Amro district of Homs after a 26-day siege by Assad’s forces.

They said a few fighters had remained behind in the shattered quarter to cover the “tactical withdrawal” of their comrades.

Syrian forces again shelled Baba Amro earlier in the day, despite world alarm at the plight of civilians trapped there.

Snow blanketed the city, slowing a ground assault begun on Wednesday, but also worsening the misery of residents short of food, fuel, power, water and telephone links, activists said.

Reports from the city could not be verified immediately due to tight government restrictions on media operations in Syria.

Assad is increasingly isolated in his struggle to crush an armed insurrection that now spearheads a year-long popular revolt against four decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule.

To those who have contributed to help keep this site going.  It was begun almost 3 years ago with the expectation that its longevity would be limited to a few months at most.

Right….

Thank you!  Don’t know how to say it more emphatically.

This was originally a video blog documenting the suffering of Israelis during the Cast Lead operation in Gaza.  I pray to not have the opportunity to give video reports of our suffering from the war with Iran.

If it needs doing, I’ll do my best.  It’s the most I can do to help my people.

Here’s my first vid post on this site re Iran.  Other than how younger I looked then, it’s amazingly “up to date.”

– JW

Russia, China join U.N. council in Syria rebuke, urges ‘immediate’ humanitarian access.

Thursday, 01 March 2012

The U.N. Security Council said in a unanimously agreed statement that they “deplore” the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria. (Filr photo)

inShare1

Jeffrey Herf: Why Won’t Obama Speak Frankly About Iran? | The New Republic.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 1, 2012, 5:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

Last-ditch bid fails to bridge US-Israeli differences

In a dramatic U-turn to show Israel that Washington is serious about its military option against Iran’s nuclear program, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday, March 1, that “military options being prepared start with providing refueling for Israeli planes and include attacking the pillars of the clerical regime. They include the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its elite Qods Force, regular Iranian military bases and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.” The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in Washington’s first public reference to possible joint military action with Israel against Iran.
Earlier, Israel asked the Obama administration to finally set red lines for Iran’s nuclear program and abandon its “shifting red lines” option, as well as spelling out US military contingencies instead of using the worn-out “all options are on the table” mantra.
debkafile reported earlier Thursday on the deep discord marking the US-Israeli approach to the threat of a nuclear Iran:

Barring last-minute changes, US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will still be at profound cross purposes on Iran when they meet at the White House on March 5. Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak flew to Washington to try and work out with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Wednesday, Feb. 29 a formula for bridging the widening gap. debkafile’s Washington sources report that notwithstanding their smiling embraces, Barak flew straight back home to inform the prime minister they had failed.

While still airborne, Barak heard White House Spokesman Jay Carney further sharpen Obama’s current tone:  “I think we have been clear about this – that any (Israeli) military action in that region threatens greater instability in the region, because Iran borders both Afghanistan and Iraq – we have civilian personnel in Iraq, we have military personnel as well as civilians in Afghanistan.”
Carney added “But our approach right now is to continue to pursue the diplomatic path that we’ve taken, combined with very aggressive sanctions.”

Senior American and Israeli officials said on Thursday, March 1 that this statement confirmed that the president had turned down two key Israeli requests:

1. To set final and absolute red lines for Iran’s nuclear program which, if crossed, would provide the grounds for the US and Israel to strike its nuclear sites. Israel maintains that Washington’s Iran policy can be summed up as “shifting red lines:” Whenever Iran moves ahead with another nuclear achievement, the US sets new “red lines” to avoid a confrontation. This enables Tehran to jump its nuclear program forward from one US “red line” to the next.
2. To stop reciting the mantra that “all options are on the table’ for stopping Iran gaining a nuclear weapon and moving on to more definite language for specifying American military contingencies. However, the attempt to formulate a new locution evaded the efforts of Panetta and Barak.
President Shimon Peres is due to meet President Obama Sunday, March 4 although the hour has not yet been set. Whether it takes place before or after the US President’s speech to the AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) National Convention opening that day in Washington is significant.
If it takes place after, it would mean that the Americans are no longer amenable to Israeli persuasion to give up their objections to an Israeli attack and they expect Jerusalem to respect the Obama administration’s demand to give sanctions and diplomatic pressure more time to persuade Iran’s leaders to pack up their nuclear weapon program.

Obama is waiting anxiously to see if the Iranians turn up for nuclear talks with the five UN Security Council permanent members and Germany in Istanbul next month. To meet one of their conditions for coming to the table, the US stalled on leading the West and Arab powers into military intervention to overthrow Syria’s Bashar Assad.

But even if Peres gets to see Obama before the AIPAC speech, there is not much he can do to persuade the US president to accept a compromise formula that would save his talks with Netanyahu from digging the rift between them on Iran still deeper.
Thursday, March 1, senior American sources listed the US-Israeli schedule for the coming days:

Thursday: Former US presidential adviser Dennis B. Ross holds a background briefing on US policy for Iran with American journalists. Although he holds no official White House position, Ross is considered sufficiently influential and well-informed to outline the next stages of the presidential Iran strategy.

Sunday, March 4:  President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu both address the opening of the national AIPAC Convention in Washington. The extremely sensitive order of appearance has not yet been settled.
Jerusalem would rather Obama go first to give Netanyahu the chance to answer his comments. For that very reason, the Americans would prefer their president to follow the prime minister and so, in a manner of speaking, carve his policy in stone.

The White House is making every effort to make sure no public confrontation over Iran takes place between the American and Israeli leaders in their widely broadcast and televised appearances before an audience of some 14,000 Jewish delegates from across America.

Monday, March 5:  The Obama-Netanyahu summit at the White House.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Binyamin Netanyahu 

Last-ditch bid fails to bridge US-Israeli differences

Barring last-minute changes, US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will still be at profound cross purposes on Iran when they meet at the White House on March 5. Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak flew to Washington to try and work out with US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Wednesday, Feb. 29 a formula for bridging the widening gap. debkafile’s Washington sources report that notwithstanding their smiling embraces, Barak flew straight back home to inform the prime minister they had failed.

While still airborne, Barak heard White House Spokesman Jay Carney further sharpen Obama’s current tone:  “I think we have been clear about this – that any (Israeli) military action in that region threatens greater instability in the region, because Iran borders both Afghanistan and Iraq – we have civilian personnel in Iraq, we have military personnel as well as civilians in Afghanistan.”
Carney added “But our approach right now is to continue to pursue the diplomatic path that we’ve taken, combined with very aggressive sanctions.”

Senior American and Israeli officials said on Thursday, March 1 that this statement confirmed that the president had turned down two key Israeli requests:

1. To set final and absolute red lines for Iran’s nuclear program which, if crossed, would provide the grounds for the US and Israel to strike its nuclear sites. Israel maintains that Washington’s Iran policy can be summed up as “shifting red lines:” Whenever Iran moves ahead with another nuclear achievement, the US sets new “red lines” to avoid a confrontation. This enables Tehran to jump its nuclear program forward from one US “red line” to the next.
2. To stop reciting the mantra that “all options are on the table’ for stopping Iran gaining a nuclear weapon and moving on to more definite language for specifying American military contingencies. However, the attempt to formulate a new locution evaded the efforts of Panetta and Barak.
President Shimon Peres is due to meet President Obama Sunday, March 4 although the hour has not yet been set. Whether it takes place before or after the US President’s speech to the AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) National Convention opening that day in Washington is significant.
If it takes place after, it would mean that the Americans are no longer amenable to Israeli persuasion to give up their objections to an Israeli attack and they expect Jerusalem to respect the Obama administration’s demand to give sanctions and diplomatic pressure more time to persuade Iran’s leaders to pack up their nuclear weapon program.

Obama is waiting anxiously to see if the Iranians turn up for nuclear talks with the five UN Security Council permanent members and Germany in Istanbul next month. To meet one of their conditions for coming to the table, the US stalled on leading the West and Arab powers into military intervention to overthrow Syria’s Bashar Assad.

But even if Peres gets to see Obama before the AIPAC speech, there is not much he can do to persuade the US president to accept a compromise formula that would save his talks with Netanyahu from digging the rift between them on Iran still deeper.
Thursday, March 1, senior American sources listed the US-Israeli schedule for the coming days:

Thursday: Former US presidential adviser Dennis B. Ross holds a background briefing on US policy for Iran with American journalists. Although he holds no official White House position, Ross is considered sufficiently influential and well-informed to outline the next stages of the presidential Iran strategy.

Sunday, March 4:  President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu both address the opening of the national AIPAC Convention in Washington. The extremely sensitive order of appearance has not yet been settled.
Jerusalem would rather Obama go first to give Netanyahu the chance to answer his comments. For that very reason, the Americans would prefer their president to follow the prime minister and so, in a manner of speaking, carve his policy in stone.

The White House is making every effort to make sure no public confrontation over Iran takes place between the American and Israeli leaders in their widely broadcast and televised appearances before an audience of some 14,000 Jewish delegates from across America.

Monday, March 5:  The Obama-Netanyahu summit at the White House.

Israel unveils sophisticated shelters in Tel Aviv, a likely Iran target – The Washington Post.

Iran Air War: U.S. Plans For Possibility, But Goal Remains Unclear.

WASHINGTON — Planning for an air war against Iran continues inside the Pentagon, and the U.S. Air Force could mount such intense strikes against Iranian targets that “you wouldn’t want to be in the area,” said Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, on Wednesday.

Indeed, some senior military officers and air power specialists caution that putting a decisive end to Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions would require a massive, all-out war — not only to demolish Iran’s nuclear facilities but to destroy its governing regime.

President Barack Obama has said the United States is “determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.” The United States and others are now tightening financial and trade sanctions to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. But the Obama administration has not spelled out precisely what “prevent” means, and administration officials have been careful not to set clear military objectives.

In a meeting with defense reporters Wednesday, Schwartz deflected a question by The Huffington Post about whether air power alone could “end” Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

“It really depends,” he said. “What is the objective? Is it to eliminate? Is it to delay? Is it to complicate? The larger question here is more one of policy” than of military capability, he said.

The Air Force, along with the other military services, has given the White House a series of options for attacking Iran, Schwartz said. Other government agencies have provided political, financial and additional options.

As far as the military options are concerned, Schwartz said that Marine Gen. James Mattis, the Mideast combat commander who would oversee a war with Iran, “is satisfied that we have been as forthcoming and imaginative as possible” in the planning.

“We and each of the other services each contribute, and we are prepared to do so,” Schwartz added. He declined to provide specific details about the war planning.

Among the weapons that could be used against Iran is the 20-foot-long, 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), designed to be used against deep-buried targets such as the nuclear reprocessing plant shielded by 250 feet of granite in a mountain outside the holy city of Qom, according to a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Although the MOP has encountered technical problems in its development, Schwartz said it is “operational.”

But making effective use of such a weapon requires a broad, coordinated effort among hundreds of aircraft, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, an F-15 combat pilot who planned the complex 1991 air war against Iraq and other operations, told The Huffington Post. “Executing an air campaign is not just flying from A to B and dropping a bunch of bombs and coming home,” he said.

In the event of an attack, missiles, bombers and strike fighters would be sent against Iran’s air defenses, which Schwartz said have recently been strengthened. Other aircraft would be targeted on Iran’s nuclear sites, accompanied by command-and-control aircraft, airborne electronic countermeasures and electronic warfare systems, all choreographed with aerial tankers “and put together in such a way that the timing is impeccable and each part of the overall mission reinforces other parts,” Deptula explained.

“It would be a formidable air campaign, but it could be accomplished,” Deptula said. And it would take the United States to do it. “The Israelis have one of the most excellent, innovative air forces in the world — that’s not at issue,” he said. But with the distances to be covered to reach Iran and the limited number of refueling tankers that Israel can provide, “there is a capacity issue.”

How effective could such a broad air campaign be? “You can set them back months to years,” Deptula said. “But ultimately you are going to have to deal with the same problem again. One of the biggest challenges is you are dealing with a theocracy, a bunch of zealots, and that’s the quandary.”

“No one wants to talk about regime change. But if you want to put an end to this problem, I am afraid to say it will require a change of regime in Iran,” he said.

Nonetheless, like other senior commanders, Deptula urged caution when talking about attacking Iran. “Everybody is talking about the kinetic [military] option,” he said. “But first, a highly orchestrated symphony of diplomatic, economic and information pieces have to be assembled into a coherent whole to accomplish our end game, and that has to be done before we talk about military options.”

That view parallels the thinking of retired Marine Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright, who left last summer as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a former fighter pilot and from 2004 to 2007 led the U.S. Strategic Command, which has responsibility for global nuclear and conventional strategic attack missions.

Iran’s nuclear facilities are “not a pinpoint target,” Cartwright warned during a panel discussion last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. He said Iran has been “very clever” about siting its nuclear facilities, some in remote locations and some deep underground where “there are not weapons that can penetrate.”

Asked about that assertion Wednesday, Schwartz acknowledged that deep underground targets are difficult to destroy. “Strike is about physics, and the deeper you go, the harder it gets,” he said. But he said the MOP “is not an inconsequential capability.”

Cartwright insisted last week that any air strike would fall short of the goal of ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“Really,” he said, “to take care of this problem kinetically is going to require quite a few [U.S. military] people on the ground, which is not likely to happen. So you can do air strikes to cause havoc, and then what?”

If Iran has the will to push forward with development of a nuclear weapon, it has the intellectual capacity to accomplish that, Cartwright said, and it can continue to spread out nuclear weapons sites beyond the ability of the United States to find them all.

In short, he said, “a kinetic attack is a delaying tactic. A strategy that would deny Iran nuclear weapons probably requires an invasion and change of regime.”

And no matter whether military action is effective or not, said Cartwright, the instability it will cause will be “significant, and not just in the oil markets.”