IRAN: Stop nukes by bombing oil wells, neocons suggest

Why attack Iran's nuclear facilities when striking their oil infrastructure would be much more effective in the scope of a US-led preventive war? Sure, oil prices might skyrocket and the world economy might collapse. But, hey, that's the price you pay for security.

Such a scenario is not a nightmare or an outtake from a remake of Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," but part of a serious recommendation made by two neoconservatives in case sanctions fail to persuade Iran to abandon its enrichment of uranium, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons or fuel for peaceful energy production.

In a July report titled "The Last Resort: Consequences of Preventive Military Action Against Iran," and published by the neoconservative Washington Institute for Near East Studies, scholars Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt advocate military strategies that would ultimately discourage Tehran from pursuing any future non-civilian nuclear activities:

Because the ultimate goal of prevention is to influence Tehran to change course, effective strikes against Iran's nuclear infrastructure may play an important role in affecting Iran's decision calculus. Strikes that flatten its nuclear infrastructure could have a demoralizing effect, and could influence Tehran's assessment of the cost of rebuilding. But the most effective strikes may not necessarily be against nuclear facilities. Iran is extraordinarily vulnerable to attacks on its oil export infrastructure.... The political shock of losing the oil income could cause Iran to rethink its nuclear stance—in ways that attacks on its nuclear infrastructure might not.

And if an attack on the oil facilities of a country with some of the world's largest reserves leads to a huge spike in oil prices, sends gas prices up to 10 bucks a gallon and brings economic ruin in the rest of the world, the report continues, well, so be it:

To be sure, in a tight world oil market, attacking Iran's oil infrastructure carries an obvious risk of causing world oil prices to soar and hurting consumers in the United States and other oil-importing countries.... If the choice is between higher oil prices and a Middle East with several nuclear powers, higher oil prices and reduced economic growth are not clearly the greater evil.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is a famous Beltway think tank. It was founded in 1985 by Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.

The 45-page report reads like a manual on how to wage a successful preemptive war on Iran. It discusses "key political and contextual questions" pertaining to a preventive war outside the usual frame of strictly military-technical considerations.

The report assesses different scenarios of military action by stressing the importance of "favorable" international, regional and local political environments. An attack against Iran won't necessarily lead to a nationalist backlash if it's done at the right time and in the right way. They draw such conclusions from civilian reaction to bombing runs during World War II and the Iraq-Iran War:

After a few days of bombing, civilians realized that as long as they stayed away from military facilities or potential strategic targets, they could go about their business reasonably safely, even during air raids. That fact is likely to undercut the intensity of the reaction to any preventive strike.... The challenge, should the United States decide to go that route, would be to conduct military and information campaigns that mitigate a nationalist backlash and that undercut and isolate the regime, while at the same time signaling the Islamic Republic's leaders that the United States is prepared to make a deal if they abandon their nuclear program.

The authors go on to dismiss Iranian responses to a strike and present "remedies" to every one of these possible responses, from attacking U.S. assets in the Gulf to attacking Israel through Lebanon and sponsoring terror or even waging a full-scale war. They argue that the U.S. should strike Iran before Israel does because the Jewish state "would have many disadvantages to the United States."

The report concludes that no matter how costly, a policy of prevention remains a better option than deterrence:

If the potential risks, challenges and consequences of prevention (as previously outlined) are daunting, the risks and challenges of deterrence are even more so. Deterrence is not an easy, low-risk alternative. The cost/benefit calculus pertaining to prevention versus deterrence as a means of dealing with Iran's nuclear program may be one of the most complex and difficult policy choices facing U.S. policymakers today, given the uncertainties of the prospects for success and the possible price of failure for each.

— Raed Rafei in Beirut

Photos: Patrick Clawson, top, and Michael Eisenstadt. Credit: Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

P.S. The Los Angeles Times issues a free daily newsletter with the latest headlines from the Middle East. You can subscribe by registering at the website here.

Comments

[mike]

I say we bomb israels nuke plants, they are way scarier than any iranian ever will be.

[susan smith]

It's tragic that the United States has to resort to bullying and fabrications in order to deal with someone who is acting fully in accordance with international agreements, but who is not in agreement with the politics of the United States. It is our own government that at fault, not Iran. Our own government has lost its capacity to deal rationally with other nations that don't see the world as we do. Undoubtedly the nations, when working on the NPT and other treaties concerning the development of nuclear technology, understood that not all nations would be in perfect political accord while they were working on their technology. Yet, all nations were granted the right to develop nuclear technology and enrich uranium, regardless of politics. Why is the United States not acknowledging this right? Why is our government resorting to barbarian tactics of lies and intimidations, instead of diplomacy and human reason? We have lost our minds, and we are doomed if we don't turn this around.

[johnqpublix]

U.S. Bully Hypocrites

Put the 2nd generation neocons on a leash. The first generation of neocons advocated mutual destruction. In that vein. Let Iran have a bomb. The idea worked and can work now. Once they have a bomb, the U.S. will negotiate with them.

Washington Institute for Near East Policy is a propaganda machine advocating 2nd generation neocon polices of having the U.S. control the region through proxy wars for Israel.

[Thinking Dove]

It is simple bigotry that Iran is not being allowed to develop atomic weapons. Why shouldn't an Islamic hereditary theocracy be allowed to build I.C.B.M.s?

A nuclear middle-east will be a peaceful middle-east because of Mutually assured destruction. Mutually assured destruction kept the peace between the United States and the Soviet Union for decades.

Atomic bombs are defensive weapons because they make victory impossible for anyone.

Nuclear proliferation is going to happen sooner or later any way.
Technology always spreads. Gunpowder was invented by the Chinese, but now everyone has it. Even the most isolated illiterate tribesman carrys an assualt rifle when he goes to war.

In the future, every Mullah, Latin American Generalismo, and African Warlord will have the ability to hurl nuclear weapons at one another. But, they will also be threatened with the same thing coming back at them. War shall become obsolete and peace shall prevail.

It is racist to think that only educated democratically elected, western leaders can face the reality of mutually assured destruction and act reasonably.

After all, it's not like there is a history of sucide attacks in the Middle East

[Vinces]

You know what would really make this article even better? If the whole holocaust thing was a lie. Yea because I mean basically this article is showing how neoconservatives are trying to ruin life on Earth, and how they are all under the control of Israel and Israel just wants to stay alive at all costs. That's disgusting.
So anyways, if the holocaust was just a big trick by the Jews then wouldn't this article seem even better? Sure it would. I suggest that the author follow up on that and even if the holocaust was real he could just deny it maybe or say something llike "well we should investigate further." Then the Neocons would look so dumb. Haha yea they would because they believed it all along like a bunch of dupes. They even allowed it to influence foreign policy. I hate them. But maybe this post should not be approved. Let's keep this plot a secret. ;)

[Vinces]

So Neocons= bad. They intend to ruin life on Earth by bombing Iran's oil because they are under the control of Israel who is evil. Yes clearly this is all true, and the holocaust that must be a lie right? I mean if it was just a big lie wouldn't this article be even better? Because then Israel is even more evil. And Iran turns out to be the bearers of truth and the Neocons are the ones who were wrong all along. The author definately should follow up on that.

[Ghazi]

To Mr. Georges,
Although I'm not from the Sheiat faction ( the doctrine in Iran) but I wanted to correct some of your concepts about Islam. Islam can never be said to be terrorist religon. Basically because our message to the world is peace and not War. We have been asked to fight in the faith of God if and only if we were precluded our right to convey our message to the mankind. We would also fight when our land is stolen and our women raped as should any one else do.
It is not true that US is not supporting Israel US is indeed using everything against Arabs for the sake of Israel. This fireworks of pressing Israel to give land to Arabs is only for media consumption, the fact is that US has never taken a serrious step to resolve the conflict in Palastine because it knows that the any solution would harm its favoured child Israel. Arming Egypt, equally is no evidience for US neutralism as giving a bunch of wooden swords to Egypt will not harm the Arsenal it provides to Israel. Our religon and the Jewsh is not the same, this a mere fact because they say about Mery (meriam) that she is a prostitute go and read the Jewish books to see how they are lying in the name of God and to read the stories they are making about their prophets Jaquobe and Josef and Yahood let alone Jesus (peace be upon him and his mother)

[andrew]

"u don't hear the us or jews talkin about wiping the iranians off the face of the earth do u"
-cshapley1

YES YOU DO!

[andrew]

isreal has way to much power over our country....the isreali lobby is meddling far too much in U.S. foreign policy. grow up silly children screaming "anti semite anti semite..." there are actually other issues here at work then your little whinning. isreal can totally defend itself...has a nuclear arsenal of its own...there is no need to start www III over iran.

[Georges]

THIS IS DEMOCRACY AT WORK,AND DON'T WORRY,YOUR TAX MONEY IS GONNA PAY FOR THIS NON-SENSE.IT'S ALMOST LIKE WE ARE TRYING TO FULLFILL ARMAGEDON.AND FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT CALL ISRAEL A TINY PEACE OF LAND,WELL THAT TINY PEACE OF LAND,ONCE AMERICA IS FINISHED,WILL BE THE #1 AIRFORCE IN THE WORLD.
GOOD LUCK GUYS,AND MAY GOD(FOR THOSE WHO STILL BELIEVE)BE WITH US,WE ARE GOING THROUGH SOME EXCITING AND VERY DANGEROUS TIMES

[Ray Bright]

I can't believe all those retarded antisemites suggesting that "Israel is running US foreign policies".
Have a look at the map, all of your retards, and realize that Israel is less then 1% of all Middle East. There is plenty of place for Pal-Arabs to go and be among their own Arab people. Unfortunately the other Arabs-Muslims who claim to support their Pal-Arab brothers don't allow allow them to become citizens in their countries. They treat them worse than s**t and they don't give any money to them either.

The Jews in their tiny Israel is being pressured to give their land to their sworn enemies. Now THINK!!!!
If what you say was true: That Israelis were running America, why would America pressure Israel to give up land?
If Israelis were running America, Israel would be allowed to re-claim the land of Judea and Samaria and expel the Pal-Arab to any of the 22 Arab countries of their choice.
If America was indeed supporting Israel, America would not be arming Egypt.

Indeed truly supporting is the most intelligent thing America could do. Allow Israel to establish itself as a true regional power, and then America will have a powerful friend in the Middle East.
Right now America is trying to bribe Muslims to be it's friends, however Muslims are never going to be America's friends.

Read Koran and realize: Islam is a terrorist religion. It's aim in world conquest for Allah. It is also a lie, that Muslims believe in the same God as Jews and Christians. On the contrary, they believe that before the Last Day, Muslims will have to kill all Jews, and subjugate all Christians.

Finally, America can do very very well without any Middle-Eastern Oil. There is plenty of oil in America, and as soon as the oil price goes, alternative technologies will become available.

America's greatest asset is it's inventiveness: Let all oil go to hell, we WILL invent new sources of energy.

[cshapley1]

lou, ur so full of bull, if u think it's safer for the iranians to have a nuke than the us or israelis, u need to have ur head examined. u don't hear the us or jews talkin about wiping the iranians off the face of the earth do u, even though we prolly should, furthermore the iranians won't b able to do it anyways, the jews r god's chosen people and u think he will allow it to happen, haah lol..... he'll have an earthquake or massive sandstorm to happen in iran if they do try to use nukes. read the bible it has all the answers and will tell u ahead of time b-4 it happens, and that;s where u can b wise to the questioned events. good luck and i hope u wise up, thanks charles, if u have any questions e-mail me ;-)

[joepro]

"So it's better to create a global depression in the name of protecting Israel? An attack on Iran's oil infrastructure would bring about a Soviet-like collapse of an America that falls under the weight of its national debt once its GDP drops like a rock. But hey, as long as Israel is safe, it would be worth having 90% of Americans living in poverty."

ABSOLUTELY AGREE!!! who cares? as long as that tiny country is safe, we could pay by our lives.

[The Voice OF Reason]

Isreal has never been the friend of america just the puppet masters. Any person with half a brain should know this wouldn't work. If I were one of the leaders of Iran and Isreal/America bombed my oil fields I would know it was world war 3 and that this was the end and if I had to go back to riding camels so would the rest of the world. The Irans would make sure to bomb every oil plant in every country around them until they could never be repaired and sending dark ages. They would also make sure to bomb all nuke reactors to turn isreal into a wasteland and I for one wouldn't blame them. Dumb Neocons

[Paul Neal]

Read my lips: WE DONT NEED ANOTHER WAR!. We are s**t deep in Afghanistan and Iraq with no end in sight and we go into another conflict because Israel cant make peace with anyone else in Middle East? thats like a spoilt brat who wants it all and wants it at its terms. Not to mention destroy world economies because every dumb comment to attack Iran sends ripples to already jittery markets. Come on, Its time to negotiate; look at what false WMD evidence got us into. We as a nation should unite against anymore such misadventures.

[Farooq Khan]

If USA commits the biggest mistake of its history, attacking Iran, USA will have to run out of whole of the middle east and many more Muslim countries will start hating America from their hearts. The economy of the whole world would be badly affected and USA will have to pay for this blunder on many other fronts and USA would no more be a world super power in next 25 years.
So, USA is advised to abstain from an such mis adventure and do not push the world into another catastrophy. Iran would never attack Israeel first.

[Steve]

I think when Barrack Obama is elected,he should go directley to Iran and begin talks, and let a more neurtral figure from the US confront, and decide the big picture.War is the last thing we need at this point.We as Americans need to,and can try and build stronger allies with countries we havent really dealt with over the last 50 years.Bridges over Bombs is the only alternitive solution for the Americans stance on world affairs.

[yong]

neocon
Bomb their oil field is good.
Bomb their army buliding is better.
Bomb their all their bridges and air fields.
What else you cannot bomb? BOMB it.

[ernieson]

Neocons have been and still are nuts and obsessed with bombing, death, destruction, and profiteering from others'
misery.

[JoeMamma]

When did the USA become a colony of Israel?
Iran is in no way a threat to our interests.
Like someone else said, there is nothing "conservative" about neo-cons. They are 99% Israeli or dual-citizen Israeli. Nothing anti-semantic about the facts, folks. That doesn't let the "left" off the hook, either. They are just as pro-zionist as the neo-cons.

[Jay]

I don't think anyone but a hand full of people know the facts about all of this. The over-simpleafaction of the issues can and will lead to more problems. The mid-east is not an evel place, nor is it full of nice careing people just like most of the world. Sometimes force is nessary, a sad fact of life on Earth. My hope is that the egos of the powerful can be put aside for the betterment of all.

[Charles]

We already were caught by the world "spewing" lies about WMD and opening a Pandora's Box which we cannot close in Iraq.
We have been the perpetrators of civilian deaths and general destruction, for our own means.
We backed up Sadaam against Iran and gave Sadaam WMD, when Rumsfeld went to visit the dictator on more than 2 times and we watched and took notes while he used WMD on the Iranian people.
Are we so blind that we believe the world does not know this?
Are we certain that Iran is making nuclear weapons ?
Maybe if they are, they are correct in trying to make them to deter the US presence of continuous warfare which is the only gospel that we speak, in the name of "democracy".

[Greg]

Israel is bound to go up in a puff from mushroom cloud... It's coming...And everyone knows it.....

And according to some liberals, just like $4 gas, Israel blowing up is good thing....Voting progrressive is a voting for destruction...

[Brian]

Striking Irans nuclear and oil infrastructure is more than a "strike" its the ultimate act of war. Wars run their course over time to a conclusion of some sort even if its an armistice as with North Korea. Its not going to be simply settled the morning after the initial air attacks end. If we "start a war" we will be in it for a long time. Clearly Iran cannot invade the US, but it can use asymmetric warfare and terrorism at unexpected nodes across the world to attack US interests as it attacked Israel in Argetina. The large US Iranian population likely holds some hezbollah cells that could also be called into action. And the attack will cememt the Iranian regiemes demonization of the US as its cause for being. The farily unique combination of religious and secular power centers in the same people gives it certain advantagges. The evolution of the revolutionary gaurds into industry, finance, and trade give its business entities a dual use capability for all sorts of occult purposes. If the US or Israel attack Iran they must be prepared for a long conflict especially in light of the wide spread of various Iranian nuclear centers of interest. Also given Lebananon and Hizbollah, the former horrendously costly Iran Iraq war you can bet they have maximized their site hardening as much as possible. This will require a longer more intense air campaign and a lot of careful intelligence monitoring. Plus with oil at a new high, possibly with their help, they will likely terrorize the gulf shipping lanes just enough to really push the price up even if they cannot hold territory. The swarming effect of their small boats would require prolonged naval action on our part and if we are smart we would attack those very early in the game so as to significantly degrade and demoralize their capability. All of this wouod take some weeks at minimum while we would also have to deal with missile attacks for months on our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel may be targeted out of lebanon and with mid range missles. All I can conclude is we must be prepared to do a long term devestating campaing on each of these issues and keep it going if we are to accomplish our goals. There is no effective quick fix plan other than a war of attrition over time.

[parviz A. Koupai]

I am an Iranian-American who has lived in the USA for over four decades and visited Iran several times and still have family there. No Iranians want to destroy Israel or the USA. In fact most Iranians do like Americans culturally and want their children be educated in American universities. The negative propaganda about Iran is unblievably outragaeous and totally baseless. Iranians want a secular type of government. If a secular government comes to rule Iran there would be nothing to worry about, Remember that the same USA supported development of nuclear reactor in Iran during the Shah's adminidtration. Iran was one of the first signatories of the establishment of the country of Israel in Palestine.
The US and its allies should puersue a change in theocracy in Iran and elsewhere. Bombing Iran, destroying her infrastructures, and killing innocent civilians would be a blunder in World history that cannot be corrected any time. PK