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However, there are many uncertainties regarding air strikes against Iran. One major uncertainty concerning the probability of an air strike against Iran's nuclear infrastructure is the substantiality of American and Israeli assessments and completeness of their understanding of Iran's nuclear infrastructure. “Iran appears to have a complete copy of Pakistan's fissile material production complex -- uranium conversion, uranium enrichment, heavy water production, and a heavy water plutonium production reactor. Elements of these facilities have been hardened against attack, notably the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, which has been buried under a thick layer of earth.” Anti-aircraft missiles and guns heavily defend all of these facilities. Furthermore, Iranian nuclear facilities are reportedly hidden in various dispersed locations.
A September 2004 analysis by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center concluded that, "As for eliminating Iran's nuclear capabilities militarily, the U.S. and Israel lack sufficient targeting intelligence to do this. In fact, Iran has long had considerable success in concealing its nuclear activities from U.S. intelligence analysts and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors (the latter recently warned against assuming the agency could find all of Iran's illicit uranium enrichment activities). As it is, Iran could have already hidden all it needs to reconstitute a bomb program assuming its known declared nuclear plants are hit." Iran also has a rather significant air defense capability, which could complicate the American plans. It is also possible that Iran could use its ballistic missiles to strike US or allied targets throughout the Persian Gulf region. Furthermore, an air strike can lead the Iranian naval wing to disrupt the shipping activity in the Persian Gulf, which could have significant repercussions to US economy.
Having considered the air strike option and its uncertainties, let us analyze the all-out ground invasion of the military option. An all-out ground offensive would involve hundreds of thousands of troops invading Iranian borders for a possible regime change or to neutralize all Iranian nuclear and offensive structures. However, a ground invasion by United States would confront many challenges. A major challenge is that the U.S. military is already stretched thin with its commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Currently, the Iraq conflict involves seventeen American brigades and three division headquarters. Afghanistan involves another division headquarters and three brigades. “The 2nd Infantry Division is committed to defending the Republic of Korea.
Two more divisions are carrying out peacekeeping in various parts of the world (the Sinai, Kosovo, and Bosnia being major deployments on that front). This is seven out of 24 division available (12 active, 8 National Guard, 3 active Marine, one reserve Marine).” The Army had been spread out due to these circumstances and until the situation in Iraq stabilizes or new additional divisions are formed up, the current limitations will exist. The Iraq war had become an insurgency, which could exist for several more years. There are high possibilities of such an insurgency developing in Iran at the time of a ground invasion. The significant large land areas of Iran would further contribute to the constraints of the military. Together with these current military constraints, assembling a broad international coalition would be even more difficult than it was for the Iraq war. “For one thing, the British don’t sound very willing. And let’s face it, without the British, we don’t have a coalition,” said Walter Russell Mead , a military expert with the Council on Foreign Relations . Furthermore, any military action can lead to drastic retaliations from the Iranians. “I do not believe that Iran will take on the United States in a major confrontation,” according to retired Air Force Gen. Tom McInerney. Without a direct military response from Iran, the possibility exists for an “asymmetrical response” — terror attacks on Americans throughout the world and in the United States. In such scenario, the militarily desperate Iranians may even form an alliance with Al Qaeda to launch terrorist attacks on United States, according to McInerney.
Having considered the military options and its setbacks, let us analyze the option of a regime change in Iran. Such an American funded regime could be designed to support and fund Iranian reformist groups who are more inclined to strike a deal with the Western world on international issues including the nuclear issue. This approach is of a lesser risk than a military option as this avoids direct military confrontations with Iran. Meanwhile, the growing hostility of the Iranian public for the current regime would bolster the prospect of an Iranian regime change. This regime change option would involve both covert action and overt diplomatic action to topple the Iranian government. However, an American funded Iranian regime change would confront severe challenges. The situation in Iran is different than it was in 1953 when United States and Great Britain engineered a military coup for a regime change. The Iranian military is highly loyal to the regime and are tightly bound by political networks that would make it difficult for United States agents to infiltrate into Iranian military. This would give United States only one option of sparking a popular revolution against the present Iranian regime. This option would also lead to severe problems. The Iranian society, having been under a tightly controlled rule with xenophobic inclinations, would not be highly favorable towards a popular revolution. If the American support for such a regime change is exposed to the public, the public support could further e for such regime change. Furthermore, revolution scenario is highly impossible due to the Iranian regime’s increasing control of the media. The lack of capable leaders for such a revolution would further worsen the situation. Finally, even with a capable leader and a some degree of popular support, such a revolution of regime change would be a highly long term project and the nuclear clock could go off much before the regime-change clock.
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