Defense Secretary Robert Gates, releasing a statement yesterday about a secret memorandum he sent to the White House in January, said he identified “next steps in our defence planning process” that would be reviewed by decision makers in the coming weeks and months.
“There should be no confusion by our allies and adversaries that the United States is properly and energetically focused on this question and prepared to act across a broad range of contingencies in support of our interests,” Gates said in the statement, issued to refute characterizations of the memo in a New York Times report.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday the military options available to Obama would go “a long way” to delaying Iran’s nuclear progress but may not set the country back long-term. He called a military strike his “last option” right now.
The comments underscored the difficult choices facing Obama in trying to keep Iran from getting a nuclear bomb without setting off a broader conflict.
“It’s very hard to predict outcomes there,” Mullen told reporters after addressing a forum at Columbia University in New York.
Mullen said there was “not much decision space to work in because of both outcomes — having a weapon and striking generate unintended consequences that are difficult to predict.” “I think Iran having a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. I think attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome,” he added.
The Times reported on Saturday that Gates’s memo was meant as a warning to the White House that the United States lacked an effective strategy to curb Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability.
