According to Newsweek magazine, Vice President Dick Cheney considered a plan to allow Israel to conduct missile strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites “in an effort to draw a military response from Iran, which could in turn spark a U.S. offensive against targets in the Islamic Republic”:
[T]he magazine quoted David Wurmser, until last month Cheney’s Middle East advisor, as having told a small group of people that “Cheney had been mulling the idea of pushing for limited Israeli missile strikes against the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz — and perhaps other sites — in order to provoke Tehran into lashing out.”
According to the report, “The Iranian reaction would then give Washington a pretext to launch strikes against military and nuclear targets in Iran.”
Newsweek said that it had corroborated Wurmser’s remarks, which it said were first published by Washington foreign-policy blogger Steven Clemons.
UPDATE: The U.K. Sunday Times writes that the U.S. Air Force has set up “a highly confidential strategic planning group” tasked with preparing the perfect plan for Iran.
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