US considers use of nuclear weapons against Iran

This is off Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.

The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.

"That's the name they're using," the report quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying.

Now I had a feeling that the Bush administration would play the marketing game in trying to sell their war against Iran to the American people. And I'm not surprised that they're trying to compare Iranian President Ahmadinejad to ole Adolf Hitler--they used that same marketing strategy to compare Iraq's Saddam Hussein to Hilter, when marketing the Iraq war. But the thought of the Bush White House seriously considering to use nuclear weapons against Iran chills me. Are the neocons that insane? Have they been drinking too much Kool Aid. I can't even comprehend the world response against the U.S. if President Bush orders a nuclear strike against Iran. Continuing on with the story:

A senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted in the article as saying that "this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war."

The former intelligence officials depicts planning as "enormous," "hectic" and "operational," Hersh writes.

One former defense official said the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government," The New Yorker pointed out.

A sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government? Who created this plan? And attack on Iran by the U.S. will certainly cause the Iranian public, and the rest of the Middle East, to rise up--against the U.S. What would the response be with the insurgents in Iraq, if the U.S. attacked Iran? How many Iranians would cross the Iraqi border to fight against the U.S. troops stationed there? And how would Iran respond to a U.S. attack?

Now for the nukes:

In recent weeks, the president has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of the House of Representatives, including at least one Democrat, the report said.

One of the options under consideration involves the possible use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, to insure the destruction of Iran's main centrifuge plant at Natanz, Hersh writes.

But the former senior intelligence official said the attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the military, and some officers have talked about resigning after an attempt to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans in Iran failed, according to the report.

"There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the magazine quotes the Pentagon adviser as saying.

This really chills me. The President is talking to Republican congressmen, and one Democrat (to make it bipartisan), about the possibility of using a nuclear weapon to destroy Iran's main centrifuge plant at Natanz. The first thing that comes to my mind is Mutually Assured Destruction.

Nuclear weapons were never meant to be a weapon that is used on a battlefield. They are actually a political weapon, threatened to be used as a weapon of last resort. The moment you use nuclear weapons against another nation, you invite the possibility of a nuclear retaliatory strike against you, destroying not just your country, but your entire civilization. The destructive power of nuclear weapons works on multiple levels. Not only do you have the destructive power of the explosion and shockwave of a nuclear detonation, but you also have the deadly effects of radioactive fallout to kill the survivors of a nuclear attack. It is the one weapon that can bring about the extinction of the human race, and perhaps even all life on earth--why else do they call it a weapon of mass destruction?

If the Bush administration decides to attack Iran with a bunker-busting nuke at Natanz, it would promote such a world shock, revulsion, and condemnation, that has never been seen before. Iraq could erupt in a full-blown war against the U.S. occupation forces. Iranian forces would certainly cross over the Iraqi border to fight against the U.S. forces there. I can't imagine how many anti-American protests would occur in the Middle East--Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Pakistan. Pakistan is a real danger right here. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The country is controlled by President General Pervez Musharraf, who assumed power following a military coup. But it is a control that is tenuous at best. He's survived several assassination attempts against him. And I'm not sure how much control the Pakistani military has along the Afghan-Pakistani border--there have been plenty of rumors that Osama Bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan. The real danger here is the possibility of Musharraf's government being overthrown as a result of a Bush administration nuclear attack against Iran. If Musharraf is overthrown and an Islamic fundamentalist regime takes control of the Pakistani government, then you can bet those fundamentalists will have control of the Pakistani nuclear weapons. How long before one of those Pakistani nukes are smuggled into the U.S. mainland?

I don't know if these scenarios are a result of my own fears, or if there is some validation towards them. I don't even know if the Bush administration is seriously considering using nuclear weapons to attack Iran--I hope they are not. The last thing I want to see is for the United States to become embroiled in a nuclear Third World War taking place in the Middle East.

We're talking Mutually Assured Destruction here.

UPDATE: Here is the link to Seymour Hesh's article