Will U.S. generals quit if Bush orders attack on Iran?

An article on The Sunday Times (UK) by Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter entitled "US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack" reports that:

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

Fascinating, if the report is indeed true.

There are of course other wildcards. What if we want until we disengage troops from Iraq, but still have foces based in Iraq, relatively close to Iran? Will we really then not "have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion"? I'm skeptical if anyone say that is undoubtedly true. And what if Israel forces our hand by air strikes against Iran? What then? Would the generals and admirals refuse to respond? One can hope, but who really knows for sure.

I think it's safe to assume that the U.S. will not attempt to invade and occupy Iran while fully engaged in occupying and pacifying Iraq. If for no other reason than that Iran has the U.S. over a barrel and will willingly make any number of symbolic concessions and give the U.S. a symbolic diplomatic success against Iran and its so-called "nuclear ambitions" in exchange for simply allowing Iran to continue on its current path, and the idea that the U.S. will revisit Iran somewhere down the road.

-- Jack Krupansky