The New Plan for Iran: Surgical Missile Strikes, Less Bombs

The Bush administration wants to alter its longstanding plan for possible attack on Iran, because severing that nationÂ’s links to terrorists has become its priority, replacing the drive to stop Tehran from building nuclear weapons, reports Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker.

The war plan had been built around a broad bombing attack aimed at, among other things, IranÂ’s nuclear facilities. The new focus, according to unnamed former officials and government consultants, would be surgical strikes that send cruise missiles to destroy the camps and facilities of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the Bush administration says have guided attacks on Americans in Iraq. President George W. Bush hasnÂ’t issued an executive order allowing a military operation in Iran, and he might never do so, says Mr. Hersh. Former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski speculates that the Iranians can avert a U.S. attack if they tone down their aggressive rhetoric.

Mr. Hersh says Mr. Bush and his advisers have decided that a big bombing campaign wouldnÂ’t have the support of an American public, which still isnÂ’t convinced that Iran poses an immediate nuclear threat. A large bomb attack could also rally Iranians around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whereas targeting training camps might not, says an unnamed senior European official. By making counterterrorism the focus of the attack, the U.S. could say it is acting defensively and point to former President Bill ClintonÂ’s similar strikes on Afghanistan and the Sudan as precedent. A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. is committed to a diplomatic solution with Iran.