Dr. Paul Pillar is a 28 year veteran of the CIA. He warned unequivocally against attacking Iran during a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Subcommittee on National Security panel of military and intelligence experts on U.S. policy towards Iran [November 14, 2007].

Pillar's testimony underlined the many reasons why the US should not attack Iran-- it would push Iran closer, not further, from nuclear weapons, it would be an act of war which would receive a response, Iran could retaliate inside Iraq, foment international terrorism, and an attack would strengthen hardliners and push diplomacy off the table. He concluded with a foreboding vision of another 50+ years of US-Iran hostility, as first achieved with the stupid 1953 coup.

"And I might add, finally, that an attack could also be expected to effect long term attitudes of almost all Iranians. Just as Iranians still today, more than half a century later, refer resentfully to the U.S. instigated coup that overthrew a populist Iranian Prime Minister in 1953, a military attack, which, of course, would be an even more open and violent act of hostility, would be a new source of long term resentment, helping to poison relations between Tehran and Washington for generations."