PoliTalking #15 - A War in Iran?
The ink was barely dry on Seymour Hersh’s article in The New Yorker this week before it was being picked up and elaborated on by MSM and alternative media sources around the world. The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even took the time to respond to the allegations in the report, which he dismissed as deliberate posturing by the U.S. at the same time as our own president dismissed them as “wild speculation.” Seymour Hersh has been warning us about the Bush administration’s plans for war in Iran for some time, but his sources in this week’s article have an even more terrifying message — that the United States has been contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in a potential air assault on Iran designed to take out its uranium-enrichment capability. The fact that the tactical nuclear option is categorically opposed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff is of only limited comfort when one considers the number of high-level administration officials, as detailed in the Hersh piece, who are on record as supporting the idea of overcoming U.S. reluctance to use small-scale nuclear weapons in an “appropriate” conflict and context (in the case of Iran, destroying key nuclear sites that may be constructed many feet below ground).Â
The Woodpecker struggles this week with the complexity of the defense and foreign policy challenges posed by Iran – a situation largely of the U.S.’s own creation in which there appear to be few if any good options. Is Senator John McCain right to assert that “the only thing worse than an armed conflict is the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran”, or is the United States once again failing to consider the full range of foreseeable but unintended consequences of its military adventurism in the Arab world? Are Americans (and the U.S. military) really ready to adopt the administration’s apparent policy of “regime change” in Iran, particularly in light of Ahmadinejad’s nationalist popularity, the enormous cost in blood and treasure of the wars the U.S. is already fighting in the region, and the emerging consensus among our allies that any form of direct military engagement in Iran would be “nuts”? Â
In the second half of the program, we also discuss the ongoing debate (and unprecedented nationwide demonstrations) in the United States over immigration reform, updating our detailed discussion last time of the legislative options on the table and the prospects for meaningful reform.  Â
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