Iran strike would risk major Mideast war

WASHINGTON – U.S. military strikes on Iran would shake the regime’s political control and damage its ability to launch counterstrikes, but the Iranians probably would manage to retaliate, directly and through surrogates, in ways that risked igniting all-out war in the Middle East, according to an assessment of an attack’s costs and benefits.

The assessment said extended U.S. strikes could destroy Iran’s most important nuclear facilities and damage its military forces but would only delay – not stop – the Islamic republic’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb.

“You can’t kill intellectual power,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney, who endorsed the report. He is a former deputy director at the National Counterterrorism Center and former deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.

The report compiled by former government officials, national security experts and retired military officers is to be publicly released today. It says achieving more than a temporary setback in Iran’s nuclear program would require a military operation – including a land occupation – more taxing than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

An advance copy of the report was provided to the Associated Press.

The assessment emerges against the backdrop of escalating tensions between Israel and the U.S. over when a military strike on Iran might be required. The Israelis worry that Iran is moving more quickly toward a nuclear capability than the United States believes. The U.S. has not ruled out attacking but has sought to persuade Israel to give diplomacy more time.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

An oft-stated argument against striking Iran is that it would add to a perception of the U.S. as anti-Muslim – a perception linked to the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and hardened by Internet-based video excerpts of an anti-Muslim film that may have fueled Tuesday’s deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic office in Libya.

“Planners and pundits ought to consider that the riots and unrest following a Web entry about an obscure film are probably a fraction of what could happen following a strike – by the Israelis or U.S. – on Iran,” retired Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, an endorser of the Iran report and a former operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview.

The report was compiled and endorsed by more than 30 former diplomats, retired admirals and generals and others who said their main purpose was to provide clarity about the potential use of military force against Iran. They reached no overall conclusion and offered no recommendations.

“The report is intended to have what we call an informing influence and hopefully something of a calming influence, but that’s something readers will have to answer for themselves,” said Thomas Pickering, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has held informal contacts with Iranian officials as recently as the past few months.

Kearney said the assessment was meant to stimulate thinking in the U.S. about the objectives of a military attack on Iran beyond the obvious goal of hitting key components of Iran’s nuclear program.

Other endorsers of the report include Brent Scowcroft, who was President George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser; former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, former Sens. Sam Nunn and Chuck Hagel and two retired chiefs of U.S. Central Command, Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and navy Adm. William J. Fallon.