Pollack offered as his “last option,” should earlier “grand bargain” and “carrot and stick” approaches fail, a direct airstrike. In his words: “Finally, and only as part of a new containment of Iran, the United States should look hard at the possibility of waging a targeted air campaign intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and intended to set back the entire program.” That should come, he says, only after US policy-makers determine Iran is “truly nefarious.” Pollack wants the President to have that “arrow in his quiver,” but he believes diplomacy and sanctions will suffice.
The U.S. sent Air Force F-16s over central Syria in a show of force following the Dec. 13 killing of two U.S. Army Soldiers and one American civilian interpreter by a gunman linked to the Islamic State group.
