Unthinkable (74 page)

12.
 Joby Warrick, “Iran's Underground Nuclear Sites Not Immune to U.S. Bunker-Busters, Experts Say,”
Washington Post
, February 29, 2012.

13.
 Matthew Kroenig, “Time to Attack Iran,”
Foreign Affairs
91, No. 1 (January/February 2012): 80.

14.
 Summary of remarks by Michael Hayden, Center for the National Interest, Washington, D.C., January 19, 2012, available at
http://cftni.org/Hayden%20_1.19.12.pdf
, p. 1.

15.
 “Impact of Military Strike on Iran's Nuclear Facilities ‘Unclear,' Says U.S. Report,”
Haaretz
, March 28, 2012. See also Viola Gienger and Tony Capaccio, “Iran Could Recover from Attack on Its Nuclear Sites Within Six Months, Says U.S. Report,” Bloomberg, March 28, 2012.

16.
 Colin H. Kahl, “Not Time to Attack Iran,”
Foreign Affairs
91, No. 2 (March/April 2012): 170.

17.
 See, for instance, Henri J. Barkey and Uri Dadush, “Why No U.S. President Will Bomb Iran,”
National Interest
, January 27, 2010; O'Hanlon, “Deterrence,” p. 41; René Rieger and Markus Schiller, “Pre-Emptive Strike Against Iran: Prelude to an Avoidable Disaster?”
Middle East Policy
19, No. 4 (Winter 2012): 133.

18.
 “Remarks by Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta at the Saban Center,” U.S. Department of Defense, December 2, 2011, available at
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4937
.

19.
 For instance, see Elliott Abrams, “The Grounds for an Israeli Attack,”
World Affairs
175, No. 1 (May/June 2012): 26–27.

20.
 Reuel Marc Gerecht, “Should Israel Bomb Iran? Better Safe than Sorry,”
Weekly Standard
15, No. 42 (July 26, 2010).

21.
 Robert Pape,
Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996).

22.
 Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O'Hanlon,
Winning Ugly: NATO's War
to Save Kosovo
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), pp. 4–5; Stephen T. Hosmer,
Why Milosevic Decided to Settle When He Did
(Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001).

23.
 For a firsthand account depicting both the terror of Saddam and the mixed Iraqi emotions about the United States by an Iraqi diarist, see Nuha al-Radi,
Baghdad Diaries
(London: Saqi Books, 1998). Among the postwar accounts of Iraq, the two that best captured—and most eloquently presented—the complicated feelings of Iraqis are George S. Packer,
The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005), esp. pp. 148–295; and Anthony Shadid,
Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War
(New York: Henry Holt, 2005).

24.
 For a concurring assessment by a bright young scholar who favors an air campaign against Iran, see Kroenig, “Time to Attack Iran,” p. 85.

25.
 William J. Broad, “How to Help Iran Build a Bomb,”
New York Times
, September 28, 2012; Cordesman and Toukan, “Analyzing the Impact of Preventive Strikes Against Iran's Nuclear Facilities,” p. 19; Stephen Heintz, William Luers, William Miller, Thomas Pickering, Jim Walsh, Frank Wisner, et al., “Weighing Benefits and Costs of Military Action Against Iran,” Iran Project, September 2012, pp. 38–39.

26.
 Summary of remarks by Michael Hayden, Center for the National Interest, Washington, D.C., January 19, 2012, available at
http://cftni.org/Hayden%20_1.19.12.pdf
, p. 1.

27.
 Kahl, “Not Time to Attack Iran,” p. 171.

28.
 O'Hanlon, “Deterrence,” p. 41.

29.
 Kroenig, “Time to Attack Iran,” p. 84.

30.
 “The DCI Special Advisor Report on Iraq's WMD,” vol. 1, 2004. In particular, see the section on “Regime Strategic Intent,” available at
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap1.html
.

31.
 Eliot A. Cohen, general editor,
The Gulf War Air Power Survey, Volume V, Part I: Statistical Compendium
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993), p. 233.

32.
 Kenneth M. Pollack,
The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq
(New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 314–20.

33.
 Department of Defense,
Report to Congress: Kosovo/Operation Allied Force After Action Report
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, 2000), p. 86.

34.
 Pollack,
The Threatening Storm
, pp. 314–20.

35.
 “Fact Sheet: Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR Final Mission Stats,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization, November 2, 2011; Simon Rogers, “Nato Operations in Libya: Data Journalism Breaks Down Which Country
Does What,”
Guardian
, October 31, 2011, available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/may/22/nato-libya-data-journalism-operations-country
. In addition, the daily breakdown of sorties is available as a link to this article at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aq-FnOoJcl-ndG9KUHFFNDgyNENWRW5TTUl6QnFDcXc&authkey=CPeKjPMB&hl=en_US&authkey=CPeKjPMB#gid=1
.

36.
 On Libyan military performance under Qadhafi, see Kenneth M. Pollack,
Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948
–1
991
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), pp. 358–424.

37.
 Pollack,
The
Threatening Storm
, pp. 293–334.

38.
 On Iran's armed forces, their capabilities, loyalties, and reliability, see Emanuele Ottolenghi,
The Pasdaran: Inside Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(Washington, D.C.: Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 2011); Steven R. Ward,
Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces
(Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009), pp. 211–326; Frederic Wehrey, Jerrold D. Green, Brian Nichiporuk, Alireza Nader, Lydia Hansell, Rasool Nafisi, and S. R. Bohandy, “The Rise of the Pasdaran: Assessing the Domestic Roles of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” RAND Corporation, 2009, available at
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG821.pdf
.

39.
 Carl von Clausewitz,
On War
, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 119.

40.
 Mark Devenport, “Kofi Annan's Delicate Balancing Act,” BBC, April 13, 1999, available at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/03/99/kosovo_strikes/318104.stm
; Albert Legault, “NATO Intervention in Kosovo: The Legal Context,”
Canadian Military Journal
1, No. 1 (Spring 2000): 63–66.

41.
 For instance, see “Britain Says Opposed to Strike on Iran ‘at This Moment,' ” Reuters, October 26, 2012.

42.
 See, for instance, Dan Joyner, “Can the U.S. or Israel Lawfully Attack Iran's Nuclear Facilities,” Arms Control Law online, August 13, 2012, available at
http://armscontrollaw.com/2012/08/07/can-the-u-s-or-israel-lawfully-attack-irans-nuclear-facilities/
; Mary Ellen O'Connell and Maria Alevras-Chen, “The Ban on the Bomb—and Bombing: Iran, the U.S., and the International Law of Self-Defense,”
Syracuse Law Review,
No. 57, No. 497 (2006–2007).

43.
 O'Connell and Alevras-Chen, “The Ban on the Bomb—and Bombing,” p. 498.

44.
 Joyner, “Can the U.S. or Israel Lawfully Attack Iran's Nuclear Facilities.”

45.
 Suzanne Maloney, “Thinking the Unthinkable: The Gulf States and the
Prospect of a Nuclear Iran,” Middle East Memo No. 27, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution, January 2013, p. 9.

46.
 My colleague Suzanne Maloney does an excellent job addressing these issues in ibid., pp. 7–9.

47.
 Jeffrey H. Smith and John B. Bellinger III, “Providing a Legal Basis to Attack Iran,”
Washington Post
, September 27, 2012.

48.
 Matthew Waxman, “What the Cuban Missile Crisis Teaches Us About Iran,”
CNN.com
, October 25, 2012.

49.
 Heintz, Luers, Miller, Pickering, Walsh, Wisner, et al., “Weighing Benefits and Costs of Military Action Against Iran,” p. 37.

50.
 Ben Hubbard, “Israeli Jets Bomb Military Target in Syria,” Associated Press, January 30, 2013.

51.
 Charlie Savage, “Top U.S. Security Official Says ‘Rigorous Standards' Are Used for Drone Strikes,”
New York Times
, April 30, 2012; Charlie Savage, “A Not-Quite Confirmation of a Memo Approving Killing,”
New York Times
, March 8, 2012; Jane Perlez, “Pakistan Rehearses Its Two-Step on Airstrikes,”
New York Times,
April 15, 2009.

52.
 Pollack,
The Threatening Storm
, p. 83.

53.
 Mark J. Conversino, “Operation DESERT FOX: Effectiveness with Unintended Effects,”
Air and Space Power Journal
, July 13, 2005, available at
http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/conversino.html
.

54.
 Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales Jr.,
The Iraq War: A Military History
(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 73–74.

55.
 Bob Woodward,
Plan of Attack
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), pp. 324–25.

56.
 See, for instance, “Russia and China Warn America Against Iran Strike as Tensions Rise Ahead of Damning Atomic Agency Report,”
Daily Mail
online, November 8, 2011, available at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058579/Russia-China-warn-America-Iran-nuclear-strike-tensions-rise.html#axzz2JrwoWhh6
.

57.
 Gabriela Baczynska and Steve Gutterman, “Russia Warns Israel, West Against Attack on Iran,” Reuters, January 23, 2013.

58.
 “Russia Says ‘No Signs' of Nuclear Weapons Development in Iran: Interfax,” al-Arabiya, November 27, 2012.

59.
 “China Steps Up Pressure to Prevent Any Attack on Iran,” Reuters, April 6, 2012.

60.
 “Attack on Iran ‘Would be Disaster,' Must Talk: Turkey,” Reuters, February 5, 2012; “Brazilian President Warns Against Military Aggression Against Iran,” FARS News Agency, October 4, 2012, available
at
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107110372
; Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, “Attack on Iran Will Hit India's Interests, Says S. M. Krishna,” India Today, May 9, 2012, available at
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/attack-on-iran-will-hit-interests-of-india-s.m.-krishna/1/187961.html
.

61.
 David E. Sanger, James Glanz, and Jo Becker, “Around the World, Distress Over Iran,”
New York Times
, November 28, 2010.

62.
 Ibid.

63.
 Author's interviews with Gulf leaders, 2010–2012. See also ibid.

64.
 Mark Heinrich and Karin Strohecker, “IAEA Urges Iran Compromise to Avert Conflict,” Reuters, June 14, 2007; “Arab States Against Military Action on Iran,”
iranmania.com
, June 18, 2007.

65.
 “Saudi Prince Warns Against Any Attack on Iran,” Reuters, November 15, 2011.

66.
 “Attack on Iran ‘Would be Disaster,' Must Talk: Turkey.”

67.
 Robert McNally, “Energy Brief: Managing Oil Market Disruption in a Confrontation with Iran,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 2012, pp. 4–5.

68.
 Dennis Ross, “Calling Iran's Bluff: It's Time to Offer Tehran a Civilian Nuclear Program,”
New Republic
, June 15, 2012; Patrick Clawson, “Obama: Offer Iran a Generous Deal,”
Atlantic
online, January 16, 2013, available at
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/obama-offer-iran-a-generous-deal/267210/
.

69.
 For an outstanding treatment of this tendency in American history, see Gideon Rose,
How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010).

70.
 “Transcript: President Obama 2013 Inaugural Address,”
Washington Post
, January 21, 2013, available at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/21/transcript-president-obama-2013-inaugural-address/
.

71.
 Jeff Mason, “Most Americans Would Back U.S. Strike over Iran Nuclear Weapon: Poll,” Reuters, March 13, 2012.

72.
 “FPI National Survey: Foreign Policy Matters in 2012,” Foreign Policy Institute, September 27, 2012, available at
http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/fpi-national-survey-foreign-policy-matters-2012-1
.

73.
 Fox News Poll,
October 2012, retrieved February 5, 2013, from the iPOLL Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, available at
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html
.

74.
 Dina Smeltz, “Foreign Policy in the New Millennium: Results of the 2012 Chicago Council Survey of American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Chicago Council on Global Affairs, September 2012, p. 29.

75.
 CBS News/
New York Times
poll, October 2012, retrieved February 5, 2013 from the iPOLL Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut, available at
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html
.

76.
 Matthew Cooper, “Voters Favor Obama Ideas but Keystone, Too,”
National Journal
, January 31, 2012, available at
http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/voters-favor-obama-ideas-but-keystone-too-20120130
.