I find I enjoy reading Pat Buchanan's American Conservative. There's much in it with which I vehemently disagree, but I almost always find one or two articles that cover a topic better than almost anywhere else. Buchanan is strongly anti-neocon and his attacks on neocon policies are always worth reading. His ideas about immigration, however, are a turn off.

Their web site is www.amconmag.com if you're interested. Some articles are free, others require a subscription.

It's not at all unusual for the Pentagon to have and/or be working on contigency plans for invading or destroying any nation on this planet.

I would imagine that there is a plan for repelling an attack by Lichtenstein and for launching a preemptive strike on Monaco somewhere in the defense department's computers. That's what they are paid to do, to think of all possible threat contigencies and be prepared to respond, and Congress should impeach the president if they aren't making such contingency plans all of the time.

What does strike me as strange is that the office of the Vice President is reported to have requested such planning. Perhaps Bush has delegated that responsibility to Dick Cheney, but usually a president goes directly to the Sec of Defense with such requests.

Powell didn't refer to Cheney's crowd as "The Crazies" for nothing.

Invading Iraq to build political capital to phase out social security is also crazy.

But it happened. 

I'm a little suspicious of this bit from the article:

As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States.

The issue of why we would attack Iran is not something that, it seems to me, would be part of the military's assignment in any case -- unless, for some reason, that affected the mission (e.g., made some difference in the particular targets).  The reason for such an attack would be a strictly political decision.  So the fact, if true, that the military's assignment isn't "conditional" on Iran's involvement doesn't mean much, does it?

And I would expect that we have contingency plans for attacking pretty much any country out there that might be on our enemies list, no?

Look, I put nothing past BushCo, and I wouldn't doubt for a second that they are setting up for using another 9/11 (God forbid) as an excuse for another military adventure.  But I don't know that this article demonstrates that.

"What does strike me as strange is that the office of the Vice President is reported to have requested such planning. Perhaps Bush has delegated that responsibility to Dick Cheney, but usually a president goes directly to the Sec of Defense with such requests."

There's a very good reason the Niger document coverup involved Karl Rove and Scooter LIbby, instead of Karl Rove and Paul Wolfowitz or Karl Rove and Andy Card.

450 targets inside of Iran.  I think Iran is roughly the size of Texas.

 Actually, Iran is slightly larger than Alaska, making it more than twice the size of Texas. But still-- using unrelated terrorist attacks as a pretext for bombing Iran is pretty sleazy.

You wrote ... "Rep. Tom Tacredo wants to "nuke Mecca" if there's a large scale attack ..."

Although I think his comments were ill-advised, let's make sure that we are fair by putting his comments in the context in which he reportedly meant them. He said that nuking Mecca should be considered as an option in the event of a large scale nuclear attack by Islamist terrorists on US soil. In that worst case scenario, we are probably talking a lot more serious response than "nuking Mecca" in practical terms. Quite frankly, I think it's not a bad idea to let foreign governments know privately at the highest levels that a nuclear attack on the US by terrorists operating from their sovereign territory will make their country subject to a nuclear response by the United States.

Anybody who's been following the neocons should be aware that they are looking for excuses to attack Iran and Syria.  Iraq was the easiest of the three to go after. A bit of a monkey wrench has been thrown into their grand scheme, though, thanks to the fact that so much of the American military is now bogged down for years in Iraq--and so we don't have troops available for a conventional assault on Iran or Syria. That won't stop the neocons though--we've got nukes to fill the gap when boots on the ground are lacking. 

Peronally, I find the U.S. condemnation of Iran particularly offensive. Why? Because I think we are largely responsible for the rise of Islamism there. Remember, it was the U.S. that destroyed a nascent democracy in Iran in order to install a more compliant dictator--the Shah. Islamism developed as a response to the Shah's repressive government. Much as the Soviets couldn't suppress the Catholic church in Poland, the Shah couldn't suppress the Islamic clerics in Iran. Political revolution, therefore, was channeled through the one institution the state couldn't completely shut down--the "church" (mosque). Now that the Shah is long gone, Islamism is no longer very popular in Iran--and there's a legitimate indigenous democratic movement developing there. Attacking Iran would only destroy that democratic movement in my opinion and lead to more hatred of the U.S. 

<i>I would imagine that there is a plan for repelling an attack by Lichtenstein and for launching a preemptive strike on Monaco somewhere in the defense department's computers.</i>

But do they have a plan for the day after?

Anderson asks whether terrorism is official US policy.

As I pointed out in a post titled "Problem Solved!" on Mercury Rising, Juan Cole described the MEK (aka Khalq), as a Pentagon-linked terrorist group targeting Iran. Based on the fact that the primary damage was in an oil-rich, ethnic minority region, it is not difficult to believe that the recent bomb blasts in Iran were Khalq's work, very likely paid for with US taxpayer dollars and perhaps even led by American "advisors."  The latter is pure speculation, but Prof. Cole's comment is not.

Scott Ritter believes that war with Iran began in June. If it follows the same trajectory as the war on Iraq, that would mean a year softening up both Iran (with overflights and destruction of radars) and American public opinion (by creating pretexts for war.) An occupation is unlikely, unless troops can be withdrawn from Iraq, so the more likely scenario would be mass destruction of Iran's military capability,

That's unlikely to work, since Iran can shut down the Gulf fairly easily. Not only that, taking their oil production offline would send the world into panic and recession.

So, the likely strategy is US-sponsored terrorism until Bushco believes they can occupy the shoreline and the principal oil-producing region. Perhaps the US can even manage to arrange the detonation of a nuclear device which can be blamed on Iran. If Iran is blamed for a (bungled) first use, Bush may think the world will accept a nuclear response.

Whatever their strategy is, it's likely to be as realistic and well though-through as the occupation of Iraq, which is to say not at all.

You wrote ... "leaking the name of woman who has been a desk jockey in Langley for years and who was outed by Aldrich Ames a decade ago ..."

Can you cite a reference for this allegation?

Can you cite a reference for this allegation?

Would Joshua Marshall do?

http://www.tpmcafe.com/comments/2005/7/13/04720/9340/14#14

<i>Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option</i>

Experts say nuclear weapons are not particularly well suited to bunker-busting, since the vehicle carrying them cannot burrow deep without disintegrating.  This entire article has an aroma of falsity about it.

I agree wholeheartedly that there should be contingency plans on the books - but those details are very troubling.  Even if Iran were to attack the U.S. directly (or dispatching terrorists to do the actual attacking), a nuclear response, even against hardened targets, would be totally outrageous.  I would hope that if we were to ever launch nuclear weapons against another country for any reason other than immediate existential danger, the world would condemn us, recall their ambassadors, slap us with sanctions, etc. 

Now that a story like this has come out, it's important for Democrats in the Senate to demand to see what role nuclear weapons play in contingency planning against an Iranian threat.  Republicans are incapable of oversight (not to mention they have already demonstrated that they would sell our national security up the creek just for a petty partisan counterattack; we should not blindly trust traitors with our force structure). 

But do they have a plan for the day after?

Don't worry, it'll be a cakewalk because we'll be greeted as liberators.

You wrote ... "but hell, let's assume it is true "

That's what the Bushies said about WMDs!

I find it curious that this story (about our options in the wake of another large terrorist attack) was leaked about; a) using nukes, and b) specifically singling out Iran as an example.

Maybe this was leaked to serve as a threat?  To put anyone who might be plotting mass transit attacks in the US on notice that such an attack would bring immediate devastation to Iran?  Like a fugitive from justice grabbing someone off the sidewalk and using her as a shield against the police:  "Come after me, and the broad dies."

Singling out Iran may not be so curious: Libya is supposed to be the poster child for how "regime change" in Iraq will cause other rogue regimes in the region to start playing nice or come a tumblin' down, so we wouldn't want to bomb them; Egypt has been a partner in extraordinary renditions; and Syria was, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, providing useful intellegence about Al Qaeda.  The Iraq war made them much less willing to provide help, but maybe there is still some being offered, or maybe just hope that there will be again. 

But Iran was the #2 designee in the Axis of Evil.  Iran. Bad.  We bomb. 

(Boy, are we a long way from the days when Ollie North thought we could win their hearts and minds by baking them a cake...) 

Al, if a leak of classified information is suspected, is it not the Executive who has the responsibility to demand an investigation?

You seem awfully quick to cry hypocrisy against Matthew, but what you are saying is itself not internally consistent.

Your claims that Plame was "a desk jockey" and had previously been outed are false, by the way.  If either were true, the CIA would have been unable to file a criminal complaint, and the Ashcroft Justice Department would have been fully justified in refusing to appoint a special counsel. 

Just because you read it on Free Republic doesn't make it so. Just because you repeat something untrue doesn't change reality.

But please keep up the bleating. It's very entertaining.  

This alleged plan, and the leaking of it, sound to me like an updated application of the old "madman theory" of deterrence: that the best way to deter is to convince the other side that you are a rabid, conscienceless psychopath.

But how would madman-style counterattack plan plan be applied to a country that one admits may not even be behind the attack?  The theory perhaps is that if we let Iran know that it will suffer the direst consequences if there is terrorist attack on American soil, whether they are responsible or not, then they will make it their business to learn about absolutely everything that's going on in the underworld of terrorism, and precent the attacks before they occur.  The message would appear to be that the whole Islamic world is Iran's back yard, and we are holding them accountable for policing their own back yard.

But, frankly, it sounds a bit to incredible to me. For such a public threat to be effective, it must be credible, and I have trouble believing that even Dick Cheney is such a sick f..k that he would incinerate a few million Iranians for something he honestly believed that they had nothing to do with.

I wouldn't put it past omeone like Michael Ledeen, on ther other had, who has been for years a devotee of the view that the Iranians are the "terror masters" who direct all of the world's Islamic terror from central headquarters in Tehran.  So Ledeen would presumabky conclude that the Iranians are automatically to blame.

Al spouts the latest lie that the leak of Plame's status as a (current or former) covert agent doesn't matter because Aldrich Ames "outed" her years ago. Ames may have betrayed her to the KGB, an organisation of redoubtable secrecy with  the reputation of plugging leaks with bullets.  The KGB or its successor may of course in turn have traded her identity to its friends in say the Syrian secret service, but never shouted it from the rooftops as Novak did. The other point is that spies are unreliable; the KGB could not have been entirely confident in its source (fiction? disinformation?), a fortiori the hypothetical Syrians. At best, the earlier betrayal, like Ms Plame's retirement from the field, reduces the damage done by the leak. It's relevant to the sentence, not the existence of the crime.

Your first priority is the defense of American lives.

Dan, this gets very much at the moral dilemna I see in advocating a massive (and not too selective) nuclear attack in response to a similar attack on us. Yes, our priority is defending our own lives--but, in my opinion, not to the point that we do something so outrageous and so bad for the rest of humanity that it turns us into monsters. I've never liked the MAD scenarios of the cold war. At some point, I think it's far more moral and noble to let one's self die in order to preserve the rest of the Earth. I respect your disagreement with me on this, because I think lots of people would disagree. It's just my own morality here. I don't think my own life is more important than the health of the world. Sometimes, I think protecting my life isn't the priority. Sometimes, self-sacrifice is the greatest thing a person can do.

You wrote ... "At some point, I think it's far more moral and noble to let one's self die in order to preserve the rest of the Earth. "

This is fine as a personal viewpoint. However, an American president is sworn to defend the people of the United States, and to do everything possible to defend America first.

Harry Truman was faced with this dilemma. Should he kill 250,000 Japanese with the atomic bombs, or risk perhaps 250,000 American lives or more to invade and capture Japan? He did what his oath dictated. He preserved American life first, which is what the Constitution requires.

I hope no other president is ever faced with the decision Truman had to make.

C'mon Matt, not incinerating an entire country with nuclear weapons even though they never attacked or threatened us is so 9/10 (or is that 7/6).

Welcome to our brave new world........

But what does leaving nuking Mecca as an option on the table do for us? I just don't see how Mecca is a threat.

Maybe I'm sensitive to this because I have Muslim American relatives who are very decent and peace-loving people. And I know how hurtful such suggestions are to them personally.

If we were at war with a Catholic terrorist group, would we need to put nuking the Vatican on the table?  I don't think so.  I think the only reason we're putting Mecca on the table is because it's provocative and appeals to a sort of primitive revenge motive that is ultimately likely only to escalate the conflict, not diffuse it.

So please, let's take Mecca off the table. We can leave tactically important sites on the table. But I repeat, blowing up Mecca is deplorable and a crime.

There is a big difference in suspecting someone's cover may be threatened, and knowing their cover has been blown.

Most of intelligence work is involved in linking seemingly unrelated pieces of information. The more information that is available, the clearer the picture becomes. The outing of an agent doesn't merely affect that individual agent, but the entire network.

You could be missing one piece of the puzzle linking a person to a spy agency and it may be someone innocuous like a bank loan agent a business associate or the neighborhood bakery guy.

The leak blows her cover completely. We on the outside can not evaluate how much or how little potential damage could be done by that. It could have absolutely no effect whatsoever, or it could blow an operation overseas someplace.

That is why cover is taken so seriously by those in the intelligence world. You don't know what piece of information will be the key.

Maybe Plame's status was not that critical, but that does not mean you throw away her's or any other agent's cover to score cheap political points.

Re: Another thing not pointed out here; if a nuke is detonated in a US city; and the terrorists are so unsophisticated to do so by detonating it at ground level, the death toll will not be in the millions.  As over 90% of the yield would be directed upward.  Better to detonate such a weapon from an airplane about 5000 feet obove the target, or at least on the top floor of a tall building in said city.

I think you mean "directed downwards": the ground would absorb about half (not 90%) of the energy of the explosion. This would limit the blast damage (which would still be catastrophic however) but would also produce lots of dirty fallout, contaminating downwind areas with possibly lethal concetrations of persistent radiation.