Iran: Our Next Crisis? (page 3 of 5)

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Option 1: Military Strikes

Back in 1981, when Saddam Hussein was openly building a nuclear program, a nervous Israel took action: It obliterated Saddam's nuclear facilities with air strikes. Today, you'll hear pundits suggest we do the same thing to Iran's program, with an American air campaign.

But Iran is not Iraq.

Iran's program is large, dispersed across a country the size of Alaska and, in some cases, well protected -- even buried underground in heavily fortified locations. To cripple the program would take several hundred air sorties and possibly an equal number of cruise missile strikes.

The United States could mount such an operation, but might set Tehran's nuclear program back by only two to four years. The one sure thing is that our attack would be seen as an unprovoked, all-out war by the Iranians. What could they do to hit us back?

Start with Iraq. We don't like to admit it, but the United States is heavily dependent on Iran's cooperation in Iraq. The Iranians have a great deal of influence with Iraq's Shia leaders, many of whom don't like the Iranians but rely on them for money and weapons. Even though they were serving their own interests, Iranians were instrumental in persuading the Iraqi Shia to take part in the U.S.-led reconstruction.

Iran also has several thousand soldiers and intelligence operatives in Iraq who, presumably in case of civil war, have reportedly established a clandestine warfare network that includes safe houses and arms caches. So it's unnerving that Iranian leaders have warned that if the United States goes after their nuclear facilities, they will retaliate in Iraq. Most likely, they would order or encourage the Shia groups they supply to attack our forces. In the same way, they could turn to their terrorist minions, such as Hezbollah, and urge them to strike American targets in the Middle East, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, and possibly within the continental United States.

Weighed against the damage the United States could suffer from terrorist attack and chaos in Iraq -- and not to mention international condemnation, since few other countries would support us -- a military strike against Iran makes very little sense at this point.