And Now Iran
And Now Iran An unrepentant rogue state with a history of sponsoring terrorists seeks to develop weapons of mass destruction. The United States tries to work with European allies to deal with the...
...The United States tries to work with European allies to deal with the problem peacefully, depending on International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and United Nations sanctions...
...Perhaps military action won't ultimately be necessary...
...Meanwhile, some hawks, defenders of the Iraq war, would prefer to deal with one challenge at a time...
...Many people—the N^'w Yo^k Times editorial board, much of Europe, even some in the Bush administration— don't really believe a nuclear Iran is unacceptable...
...A Cuban missile crisis with Khrushchev's Soviet Union was bad enough...
...At the end of the day, they think we can live with a nuclear Iran...
...And we support holding open the possibility of, and beginning to prepare for, various forms of military action...
...They're of course all for various multilateral efforts to persuade President Ahmadinejad and Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of Iran's Council of Expediency, as well as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to change their minds and abandon their nuclear ambitions...
...they could also work with Iran, one mid-level State Department official said in an unguarded moment in my presence a couple of months ago...
...This is not a history lesson about Iraq...
...Others, fortunately, are more serious...
...And President Bush and Condoleezza Rice are serious...
...Are we willing to risk it with Ahmadinejad's Iran...
...They are now speaking with new urgency, since the Iranian government is testing us, and its nuclear program could well be getting close to the point of no return...
...This isn't serious...
...What about the hopes for a liberal, less extremist-and-terror-friendly Middle East...
...But the only way diplomatic, political, and economic pressure has a chance to work over the next months is if the military option—or various military options—are kept on the table...
...And they know that they have to speak with confidence and authority...
...After all, containment and deterrence worked with the Soviet Union...
...We support multilateral efforts through the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations, and the assembling of coalitions of the willing, if necessary, to support sanctions and other forms of pressure...
...These are today's headlines about Iran, where the regime is openly pursuing its ambition to become a nuclear power...
...Advocates of containment and deterrence should step forward to make their case openly and honestly...
...We don't agree—and we don't think President Bush does, either...
...Russia and China are difficult and obstructive...
...But great powers don't get to avoid their urgent responsibilities because they'd prefer to deal with only one problem at a time, or to slough those responsibilities off onto others...
...We look forward to engaging them in a real debate...
...William Kristol...
...They hope we can kick the can down the road a while longer, or that a deus ex machina—a Jewish one!—will appear to do our job for us...
...Doves profess concern about Iran's nuclear program and endorse various diplomatic responses to it...
...To be clear: We support diplomatic, political, and economic efforts to halt the nuclear program of the Iranian regime...
...Our adversaries cannot be allowed to believe that, because some of the intelligence on Iraq was bad, or because the insurgency in Iraq has been difficult, we will be at all intimidated from taking the necessary steps against the current regime in Tehran...
...The Europeans are generally hesitant and wishful...
...But this time diplomacy has to be given a chance to work," the doves coo...
...The Washington Post editorial page, for one, endorses political and economic steps of real consequence, warns against letting diplomacy degenerate into appeasement, proposes to test the seriousness of our allies and nations like Russia and China —and refuses to rule out the threat of military action...
...Both are being escapist...
...But they don't want even to contemplate the threat of military action...
...We support serious efforts to help democrats and dissidents in Iran, in the hope that regime change can be achieved without military action from the outside...
...We support strengthening our covert and intelligence capabilities...
...Right now, if you read the Times editorial page, or Timothy Garton Ash in the London Guardian, there's lots of talk about the unfortunate behavior of Iran, lots of urging of good-faith multilateral efforts—and lots of finger-wagging warnings against even thinking of military action...
...Eventually the reality of the threat, the obduracy of the rogue state regime in power, becomes too obvious to be ignored...
...What about nuclear proliferation throughout the region...
...But the Times, and much of Europe, and some in the administration, don't really pretend that these attempts at persuasion are likely to work...
...Maybe this time Israel will take care of the problem," some hawks whisper...
Vol. 11 • January 2006 • No. 18
