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Iran leaves U.S. and itself with troubling choices
Posted 4/13/2006 9:40 PM ET
There are moments in history when everything suddenly changes. Examples include the discovery that the Soviet Union was placing missiles in Cuba, or Adolf Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia that started World War II.
On Thursday, another such moment one in which fundamentalist Iran develops nuclear weapons and menaces the oil-rich Middle East seemed increasingly possible. The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, was given the equivalent of the middle-finger brushoff in Tehran, where he had been sent to back up a Security Council demand that Iran stop enriching uranium, the raw material for both nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
"We won't hold talks with anyone about the right of the Iranian nation (to enrich uranium)," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. Anyone who objected could, he added, "be angry at us and die of this anger." Earlier in the week, Ahmadinejad, at a news conference punctuated by chants of "Death to America," announced the "good news" that Iran had succeeded in enriching uranium and therefore, in his opinion, joined the "nuclear club." Five countries officially have nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, China, France and Great Britain. Four have them covertly: India, Pakistan, Israel and, probably, North Korea.
What is to be done?
Quite clearly, the prospect of Iran with nuclear weapons is horrifying. It could use them against Israel. Iran itself would be annihilated in a retaliatory strike, but Ahmadinejad nevertheless says Israel should be wiped off the map. Iran could also threaten neighbors in ways that could disrupt oil supplies, enforce fundamentalism and set off a regional nuclear arms race as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others rush to get their own nuclear weapons. Any or all would imperil U.S. interests and limit U.S. actions.
But how, when and whether to stop Iran? Intelligence estimates on when it could move from the low level of enrichment it claims to nuclear weapons vary from an Israeli assessment of a few months to 15 or more years. Most guesstimate about five years hardly a comfort because experts have been taken by surprise by other countries.
For all the present sense of crisis, though, the moment of real urgency one where Iran is churning out nuclear weapons has not arrived. This can, and ought, to be turned into a time for a concerted and public debate about the reality of the situation and options. The unilateral rush to war in Iraq on faulty intelligence has underscored the dangers of acting precipitously and alone.
The United States is taking a more sensible path on Iran insisting on diplomacy and recognizing the need to act with allies. That requires patience. Russia and China, both Security Council members, are reluctant to impose sanctions. Russia has economic ties in Iran and wants to reassert its influence in the Middle East; China gets much of its oil and gas from Iran. If diplomacy is to have a chance, they'll need to be brought around.
In the interim, the United States, or Israel, would be foolish to act militarily alone or any time soon. Some of Iran's nuclear facilities are deep underground. The military estimates that removing them if even possible might require 1,000 sorties against strong defenses, assuring significant losses and captured pilots, even if ground action weren't undertaken. Iran could stir trouble in neighboring Iraq and through its proxies, Hezbollah terrorists, on Israel or elsewhere.
Of even greater importance, an attack would further coalesce anti-U.S. anger in the Muslim world. Already, anti-Americanism is radical Islam's greatest ally, submerging animosities between the religion's two combative strains, Sunnis and Shiites; between Arabs and Persians (Iranians); and in Iran itself between radical religious rulers and reformers who prefer the comforts that peace with the West might bring. The prospect that the United States might use a nuclear weapon to keep Iran from getting one an appalling option would amplify those effects.
In historical terms, this might be a slowly-unfolding moment of crisis, in which a deadly mix of fundamentalism and nuclear weapons is emerging. The key is to act to manage and avert the crisis. A good model: the diplomatically averted Cuban missile crisis.
