Hijexx wrote:
U.S. contingency planning for military action against Iran's nuclear program goes beyond limited strikes and would effectively unleash a war against the country, a former U.S. intelligence analyst said on Friday.
"I've seen some of the planning ... You're not talking about a surgical strike," said Wayne White, who was a top Middle East analyst for the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research until March 2005.
"You're talking about a war against Iran" that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years, White told the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank.
"We're not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We're talking about clearing a path to the targets" by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability, White said.
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I checked this guy's CV, he probably know's what he's talking about.
He's no fan of the misuse of pre-war Iraq intelligence. Is this an attempt at whistleblowing?
What interests me is the build up coupled with the open threats from the President and the occasional "leak" of details about the war plans. Is this just classic psychological warfare strategy or is communication technology in this day and age making plans like these more transparent more immediately?
A second opinion in the article echoes the sentiment of the recently meme'd Stratfor article : Rhetoric rarely equates to reality.
Makes me wonder if we are on the way to implement a war plan or really just serve a big cup of STFU to Iran.
I think this is an indirect way to haggle about how much of Iraq Iran will get.
