President Obama’s principal military advisor said Sunday that all options are the table for dealing with the Iran nuclear threat and if the President calls for military action, the U.S. is prepared.
At a forum at Columbia University in New York, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stressed, however, that “use of the military should be the last option” should diplomatic engagement and sanctions fail, because any attack against Iran would entail serious “known and unknown consequences.”
Responding to press reports that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned in a memo to top White House officials that the U.S. lacks an effective policy for dealing with Iran, Admiral Mullen said, “We at the Pentagon, we plan for contingencies all the time and certainly there are [military] options which exist.” He said he has worried about a nuclear armed Iran for a long time because of President Ahmadinejad’s unbridled threats against Israel and “worry that other countries in the region will then seek to, actually, I know they will seek nuclear weapons, as well.”
When asked whether giving more time to diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis put the U.S. military at a disadvantage in maximizing any potential strike against Iran, Admiral Mullen said, “it is being taken into consideration in the decision calculus, if you will, to strike.” He said that clearly there is “not much decision space to work in,” because Iran “having a weapon and striking [against Iran] generate consequences that are unpredictable.”