Der Spiegel Reports Possible Strike On Iran

According to the Jerusalem Post, Der Spiegel has assembled reports from various German media that supposedly point toward preparations for a military strike against Iran:

The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran.

The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike.

According to the report, CIA chief Porter Goss, in his last visit to Turkey on December 12, requested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide military bases to the United States in 2006 from where they would be able to launch an assault.

The German news agency DDP also noted that countries neighboring Iran, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, and Pakistan were also updated regarding the supposed plan. American sources sent to those countries apparently mentioned an aerial attack as a possibility, but did not provide a time frame for the operation.

I don’t believe it. The Post’s last paragraph does nothing to add credibility to the story:

Although Der Spiegel could not say that these plans were concrete, they did note that according to a January 2005 New Yorker report American forces had entered Iran in 2005 in order to mark possible targets for an aerial assault.

I assume the New Yorker article was by Seymour Hersh. It’s possible that a Hersh story could turn out to be true, but the odds are against it. Given our current commitment of forces to Iraq, it’s hard to believe that a military strike against Iran is a realistic possibility, whether such a strike would be a good idea, in principle, or not.

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