Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty this week that he thinks the chances are “high” that Iran will face military attack if the regime in Tehran doesn’t change course on its nuclear program. In that event, Lieberman said he’ll “hope and pray” the regime falls:

“I think we have the capability either to eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapons program or to disable it in a way that it will be delayed for enough years that we may hope and pray that there will be a regime change and that there will be a more democratic and friendly regime.”

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Lieberman pushed a resolution earlier this year ruling out containing a nuclear armed Iran and loosened the threshold for military action to an Iranian nuclear weapons “capability” — a position that some have observed would make a diplomatic solution to the crisis more difficult.

But while Lieberman would hope and pray the Iranian regime falls in the aftermath of a military attack, others, like former Israeli spy chief Meir Dagan, have warned that it would have the opposite effect of rallying Iranians around the regime, as well as sparking a regional war and “accelerat[ing] the procurement of the bomb.”

Meir Dagan, the formidable former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, in a new interview with the New Yorker, continued his campaign to warn against a hasty rush to war with Iran over its nuclear program:

“An Israeli bombing would lead to a regional war and solve the internal problems of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would galvanize Iranian society behind the leadership and create unity around the nuclear issue. And it would justify Iran in rebuilding its nuclear project and saying, ‘Look, see, we were attacked by the Zionist enemy and we clearly need to have it.’ A bombing would be considered an act of war and there would be an unpredictable counterattack against us.” [...]

I have no doubt that the Iranians are moving on their nuclear program, but I don’t share the point of view that they are speeding there,” he said. “The Iranian nuclear issue is not an Iran-Israel issue, it is more related to the entire region and to the international community.”

Dagan began speaking out against war with Iran last year after he stepped down as director of the Mossad, saying that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is “the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” And since then, Dagan has promoted a diplomatic track with Iran and has pushed back on many pro-war talking points.

Iranian society is currently internally fractured, particularly after the rise of the Green Movement after the country’s disputed 2009 presidential election and distress from Western-imposed economic sanctions. But many pushing toward war with Iran often ignore the consequences of an attack, particularly Dagan’s point to the New Yorker, which he has touched on before, that it would rally the Iranian public in support of the regime. Indeed, when ThinkProgress asked prominent Iran hawk Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) late last year what an attack on Iran would do to the Green Movement, the Arizona Republican said, “That’s a good question,” adding, “they might be supportive.”

The Obama administration is aware, not only of the threat an Iranian nuclear weapon poses, but also the potential negative consequences of a military attack on Iran. And that, coupled with U.N., U.S. and Israeli assessments that Iran has not yet decided on whether to build a nuclear weapon, leads the administration to pursue a diplomatic solution with Iran, a track the it deems the “best and most permanent way” to solve the nuclear crisis.