"As it keeps making its case for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, Israel isn't being very subtle: Iran will have a nuclear bomb, possibly as early as this year, its leaders suggest; Iran's leadership is suicidal — it will drop a nuclear bomb on Israel given the opportunity. So how, the Israelis then ask, can we not afford to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, as we did Iraq's in 1981?
Such stark, simplistic logic appeals to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it skirts a couple of key questions about any such attack. For starters, would it actually succeed in putting a halt to Iran's nuclear program? Leadership at the Pentagon appears to think the answer is no. But what Israel and few others talk about, or not convincingly at least, is the other very risky unknown about such a strike: how exactly Iran would respond to it. Speculating a few weeks ago, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen told the Wall Street Journal Iran's ability to strike back "has not maxed out at all." Mullen doesn't offer specifics, but leaves the impression Iran will do what it has done in the past: small-scale attacks on American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hizballah and Hamas rocketing of Israel. But as bad as that would be, what if Iran is preparing for a much broader response, even a full-fledged war?
In fact, that is exactly what Iran's hard-liners have in mind. Over the past five years, in public and government documents, the hard-liners have established a doctrine of deterrence that calls for a disproportionate response against the United States and Israel in the event of any attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, no matter how limited. The doctrine stipulates that anything less than a large-scale response would risk the credibility of the Iranian regime — and its survival. And importantly it does not draw a distinction between Israel and the United States, if for no other reason than Israeli jets having to fly across American-controlled Iraqi airspace to hit Iran...."
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