Obama feels the heat on Iran's threat

The release of Robert Gates's memo has exposed disquiet over Obama's diplomatic approach to stopping Iran going nuclear

Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 April 2010

"Planning for foreign wars is the Pentagon's job. But a flurry of tough statements and alarming predictions by defence department officials about the potency and imminence of the Iranian "threat", including the possibility of a missile strike on the US, suggests a different kind of warfare could be breaking out at home, within the Obama administration itself.

The looming battle is shaping up as a contest between those who believe Barack Obama's carrot and stick policy can still induce Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear weapons-related activities; and those who, despairing of diplomacy and sanctions, are beginning to speak in favour of a more directly confrontational approach.

Robert Gates, the defence secretary, lit the blue touch paper with a secret memo, penned in January and revealed this week, in which he reportedly warned the US lacked a coherent, long-term plan to deal with Iran, should it persist with uranium enrichment and long-range missile development.......

Obama will ignore such extreme advice. But he cannot ignore an important insider such as Gates, who worries aloud that Iran will stealthily compile all the components of a nuclear bomb but not assemble them – and then suddenly "break out" as did North Korea, testing a device and presenting the world with a nuclear fait accompli....."