Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that a military strike on Iran would only “delay” their efforts to build nuclear weapons, not end the Iranian program, and warned that Iranian acquisition of atomic bombs could spark a nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East.
“I think – talking to my friends – the indication is that at best it might postpone it maybe one, possibly two years,” Panetta said last night after a speech at the Saban Center on Middle East Policy. “It depends on the ability to truly get the targets that they’re after. Frankly, some of those targets are very difficult to get at. ”
“That kind of shot would only, I think, ultimately not destroy their ability to produce an atomic weapon, but simply delay it,” he continued. “Of greater concern to me are the unintended consequences, which would be that ultimately it would have a backlash and the regime that is weak now, a regime that is isolated would suddenly be able to reestablish itself, suddenly be able to get support in the region, and suddenly instead of being isolated would get the greater support in a region that right now views it as a pariah.”
Panetta added that the United States would be blamed for any military strike on Iran, and noted that “once Iran gets a nuclear weapon, then they’re not – you will have an arms race in the Middle East,” he said. “What’s to stop Saudi Arabia from getting a nuclear weapon? What’s to stop other countries from getting nuclear weapons in that part of the world? Suddenly we have an escalation of these horrible weapons that, you know, I think create even greater devastation in the Middle East.”
But the defense maintained that the United States is committed to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. “We ought to continue to put our pressures, our efforts, [continue to have] our diplomatic, our economic, experts working together to make sure that that does not happen,” he suggested. “You always have as a last resort . . . the last resort of military action, but it must be the last resort, not the first.”
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, responding to Panetta’s comments today in Israeli media, agreed that the military option is a last resort, but added that “We can’t wait and say – we’ll see if they have a bomb, and then we’ll act. What if by then we will not be able to act?”
