A second report in The Sunday Times on September 2 said that the Pentagon had blueprinted a "three-day blitz" plan for massive air strikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, which would wipe out the country's entire military capabilities in three days. According to the report, Alexis Debat, Director of Terrorism and National Security at the Nixon Center based in the United States, said the U.S. military concluded that whether it went for "pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same." It was, he added, a "very legitimate strategic calculus."

Meng Xiangqing, a researcher at the People's Liberation Army's National Defense University, said that the new dispute between Iran and the United States differed from previous situations, because news reports detailed a prospective U.S. attack on Iran. The fact that the Nixon Center released information about a simulated attack lends some credibility to the notion that Washington may be preparing to take action against Iran, he said.

Meng also pointed out that an article from Xinhua News Agency said that a conservative foundation in the United States had conducted a simulated attack on Iran during the past four months. The U.S. Government was so serious about the plan that it rehearsed the simulated attack on Iran in advance, he said. This rehearsal is another indication that the United States is preparing for an actual attack on Iran, because prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the American army rehearsed almost all its military actions before it launched real ones, Meng said.

In recent months, the U.S. army has increased its carrier strength around the Gulf region, while it has kept two carriers permanently stationed there. Because the United States has more than a total of 200,000 soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, it does not have enough manpower to launch an attack on Iran, Meng said.

Better think twice

If war did break out between Iran and the United States, it would throw the region into an even more perilous situation and affect world oil prices. These factors, observers said, will make both countries think twice about rushing to arms.

General Rahim Yahya Safavi, the former Chief of the Revolutionary Guards who now serves as Khamenei's senior military advisor, said that if the United States attacked Iran, it would face three prospective problems: The United States would not be able to predict "the volume of our response;" it would not know what would happen to Israel and Washington; and it would not know what the oil flow would look like at that time.

The results of the simulated American air strikes on Iran showed that Iran could possibly cut off its oil supplies to the U.S allies, according to news reports. Tehran also has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a vital channel for transporting the region's oil to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Iran would strengthen its support of Iraqi anti-government militants and stop exporting 60 percent of Iraq's oil. If that happened, world oil prices would double, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Furthermore, Iran always has insisted that its nuclear research is only for civilian purposes, and so far there has been no evidence that the country has produced nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad has justified Iran's push for nuclear capabilities by saying that the IAEA gives every country the right to gain access to peaceful nuclear energy.

Nevertheless, there was a sign of hope for the possibility of revived diplomacy to resolve the standoff when Iran's former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who serves as chairman of the country's Expediency Council, was elected on September 4 as the new chief of the country's powerful Assembly of Experts. The assembly is responsible for supervising Khamenei in the performance of legal duties. It is believed that Rafsanjani, who was considered a moderate president compared to Ahmadinejad, could prove to be more open to talks with the United States.