Seymour Hersh: Bush Plans to NUKE Iran!

If it was anyone else, I'd dismiss it as crazy conspiracy crap. But Seymour Hersh has a pretty good track record. He claims that the Bush administration has plans to bomb Iran, including with tactical nuclear weapons.

Hersh reports:

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran.

According to Hersh, some members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to have the nuclear option removed, including threats of resignation, without success.

The level of immorality and criminal stupidity involved in the first use of nuclear weapons far, far outweighs the Iraq war. If it happens, Canada must leave all its military alliances with the US immediately, including NORAD and NATO. If Harper refuses, then he must be brought down.

Sometimes hyper-ventilation is appropriate. An unprovoked first nuclear strike is one of those times.

Update: Matthew Yglesias wonders where the evidence is that sanctions inspire revolution. He is right, of course. They don't. Sanctions result from the famous syllogism:

1. Something must be done.
2. This is something.
3. Let's do it.

On the other hand, sanctions are way preferable to nuclear first-strikes.

Update, Part Deux: On Monday, Bush called Hersh's article "wild speculation." That is not a denial, and therefore, in the odd literalism of DC discourse, it is the next best thing to a confirmation. One with Nineveh and Tyre.