Israel Matzav

Hayden clarifies

On CNN on Sunday, former CIA director Michael Hayden sounded an awful lot like he was advocating the exercise of a military option against Iran's nuclear program.

My personal view is that Iran left to its own devices will get itself to that step right below a nuclear weapon," said Hayden, "and frankly that will be as destabilizing as their actually having a weapon.”

The former CIA director stated that an attack on Iran had not originally been a serious option, but in light of Iran's intensified pursuit of nuclear materials, the military option "may not be the worst of all possible outcomes.”

In an interview with Pajamas Media, Hayden clarifies his comments on Iran.

What can be drawn from the CNN interview is that the military action option has raised the stakes but by no means is it inevitable. When asked about this point, Hayden stated that “there is kinetic action that can be taken against Iran. No one said it would be easy.” Although Hayden did not address the character of kinetic action during the interview, he explained that such action can include a conventional military attack as well as other options.

Given the fact that Iran might remain in a breakout stage, could America resort back to the deterrence option that was used during the Cold War? Hayden noted that “it took us a long time to get a balance with the Soviet Union. What does deterrence mean today? Will the Gulf States be as comfortable with the American promise as the Europeans were? Will the Saudis sit by and be as comfortable under the American umbrella as the Germans? Or will the Saudis try to get their own? We just don’t know.”

Placing Hayden’s CNN statements into a proper framework is important. His comments about Iran’s nuclear ambitions are too vital an issue to be reduced to a series of sound bites and headlines. Since America’s options seem to be narrowing, he felt that “deterrence is one of the options that remain, but do you bet the farm that you can deter them? That is the context of what I was saying yesterday.”

Read the whole thing.

More here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:23 AM