There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush?s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran?s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be ?wiped off the map.? Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. ?That?s the name they?re using. They say, ?Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?? ?
A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was ?absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb? if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do ?what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,? and ?that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.?
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that ?a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.? He added, ?I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ?What are they smoking?? ?
The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush. ?So long as Iran has an Islamic republic, it will have a nuclear-weapons program, at least clandestinely,? Clawson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd. ?The key issue, therefore, is: How long will the present Iranian regime last??
When I spoke to Clawson, he emphasized that ?this Administration is putting a lot of effort into diplomacy.? However, he added, Iran had no choice other than to accede to America?s demands or face a military attack. Clawson said that he fears that Ahmadinejad ?sees the West as wimps and thinks we will eventually cave in. We have to be ready to deal with Iran if the crisis escalates.? Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage and other clandestine activities, such as ?industrial accidents.? But, he said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, ?given the way the Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec.?
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A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. ?This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,? he said.
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In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been ?no formal briefings,? because ?they?re reluctant to brief the minority. They?re doing the Senate, somewhat selectively.?
The House member said that no one in the meetings ?is really objecting? to the talk of war. ?The people they?re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?? (Iran is building facilities underground.) ?There?s no pressure from Congress? not to take military action, the House member added. ?The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.? Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, ?The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.?
