By Steve Hynd
Via the BBC, an illuminating discussion in the Senate:
If Iran decides to go for nuclear weapons, the US may not be able to permanently stop this from happening unless it is willing to occupy the country.
This is the candid conclusion of one army general testifying in front of the Senate but one that seems to have gone mostly unnoticed amid a flurry of statements on Iran over the past few days in Washington.
Gen James Cartwright, one of America's top uniformed officers, slowly edged towards that conclusion during a Senate testimony last week, underscoring the difficult choices facing the Obama administration as it weighs what do about Iran.
...Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, then asked Gen Cartwright whether the "military approach was a magic wand".
Gen Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged it was not, adding that military action alone was unlikely to be decisive.
Senator Reed prodded further, getting the general to agree that a military strike would only delay Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon if Tehran decided to go nuclear.
The senator then went further, asking whether the only way to absolutely end any potential Iranian nuclear weapon programme "was to physically occupy their country and disestablish their nuclear facilities?"
The general answered: "Absent some other unknown calculus that would go on, that's a fair conclusion."
Idiotic warmongering neocons like John McCain might think that this is not only doable but a good idea. The rest of us should stop and think hard. Iran doesn't exist in a vaccuum.
Just on Monday, to mark Iran's Army Day, a reception was hosted by the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan - the Moslem nation with the second largest Shiite piopulation in the world, ahead of even Iraq, and actual working nukes. Senior Pakistani officials and military officers attended the event and according to the government-owned Associated Press of Pakistan "their presence reflects solidarity with the people and the government of Iran on their Armed Forces Day".
SecDef Gates has got to be aware that America can either attack Iran or continue its twin "War on Terror" occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, pick one option only, right?
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