The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Threats focused its attention Thursday on the threat Iran poses to US security. The central question for Chairman Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) is whether Iran “is advancing the lethal nexus of [weapons of mass destruction] and terrorism.” Saying Iran “presents an array of challenges to our national security,” he advocates an “innovative” response but “not one that necessarily involves a military component.” That plays well with Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institute, who told the subcommittee that from outside Iran “looks like a tough nut to crack,” but inside it has “important fissures.” Exploiting those fissures politically and economically, he says, could provide “a reasonable prospect of derailing Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons.”
A U.S. F-35C shot down an Iranian drone operating near the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier Feb. 3 in a dramatic incident that American military officials cautioned could lead to conflict amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S.
