No Magic Bullet on Iran

No Magic Bullet on Iran – David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.

When U.S. and Israeli officials say that “all options are on the table” for stopping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, that’s usually taken to mean aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and other locations.

But there is another option for impeding the Iranian program — a covert campaign to disrupt and deceive Iran’s nuclear establishment. Despite the secrecy surrounding such efforts, reports about Israeli and U.S. sabotage efforts have surfaced recently in newspaper stories, which undoubtedly have been read with interest in Tehran.

These published reports raise an interesting question: Do secret sabotage programs offer a “magic bullet” for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat — raising the cost to Iran of pursuing its program, while avoiding the chaotic backlash that would follow a conventional military strike?

More at The Washington Post.