The Boston Globe reports is prepared to launch attacks using long-range missiles, secret commando units, and terrorist allies planted around the globe to retaliate for any strike on the country's nuclear facilities.
While the U.S. considers the possibility of military action against in the likely event diplomacy fails to dissuade from pursuing its nuclear ambitions, military and intelligence analysts warn that could unleash reprisals, even inside the United States, if is attacked:
''When the Americans or Israelis are thinking about [military force], I hope they will sit down and think about everything the ayatollahs could do to make our lives miserable and what we will do to discourage them," said John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, referring to 's religious leaders.
''There could be a cycle of escalation."
President Bush has says military force should be the last resort in international efforts to deter from acquiring nuclear weapons. Nevertheless the President insists that the United States will not tolerate a nuclear armed .
According to the Globe article, it is 's unconventional weapons and tactics pose the greatest threat:
Bush's new intelligence chief, John D. Negroponte, outlining the conclusions reached by a variety of US spy agencies, warned in his first overall annual threat assessment this month to Congress that is capable of sparking a much wider conflict it comes under threat.
A major worry: newly acquired long-range missiles. Obtained with the assistance of North Korea, the Shahab 3 could strike Israel and perhaps even hit the periphery of Europe, according to a recent report by the Pentagon's National Air and Space Intelligence Center.
The missiles could also be tipped with chemical warheads and threaten US military bases in the region.
is believed to have at least 20 launchers that are frequently moved around the country to avoid detection.
[. . .]
Meanwhile, ian agents and members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, widely believed to have a large presence in Iraq, could attempt to foment an uprising by the their fellow Shi'ite majority in Iraq or join insurgents in directly attacking US troops there, Negroponte warned.
[. . .]
''Tehran continues to support a number of terrorist groups, viewing this capability as a critical regime safeguard by deterring US and Israeli attacks, distracting and weakening Israel, and enhancing 's regional influence through intimidation," according to Negroponte's assessment to Congress.
Primary among them is Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group that killed 241 US Marines when it bombed a Beirut barracks in 1983.
There is no doubt that military action against 's nuclear facilities would be messy. But as Senator John McCain put it:
There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed .
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