Why patience, not bombs, is the best way to defuse Iran’s nuclear ambitions

[Modbert]

Containment Worked on Saddam - By Art Keller | Foreign Policy

As fears of a nuclear-armed Iran grow in Washington, partisans have clung even tighter to their preferred panaceas. The debate has broken down along predictable lines: Conservatives have advocated a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, while senior policymakers in Barack Obama's administration continue to hope that "engagement" can convince the Islamic Republic to voluntarily give up its nuclear ambitions.

Both of these choices, however, ignore the most likely, and most promising, U.S. policy option with regard to Iran: containment. Though a hoary Cold War idea, containment served the United States well as a road map in its long struggle against the Soviet Union. The concept, which was first proposed by the staunch anti-Communist George Kennan, was defined as an ongoing effort to maintain a quiet stranglehold on the Soviet economy, its access to sensitive technology, and its influence abroad. When dealing with an Iranian regime that clearly sees more use in demonizing the United States than in engaging in a meaningful rapprochement, containment has to be the de facto U.S. policy.

The CIA, however, was wrong. Following the invasion, I served in two separate occasions on the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which was tasked with locating Saddam's WMDs. Despite the smuggled shipments of dual-use goods, the ISG definitively established that Saddam, under pressure from the combination of the U.S. sanctions, U.N. sanctions, and U.N. weapons inspectors, had abandoned his WMD programs.

In interviews with Iraqi government scientists at all levels of Saddam's regime, we heard the same story again and again: Saddam wanted WMD, but didn't think he could build them without getting caught. Saddam's "intent to reconstitute" his previous WMD programs was undeniable - but so was the fact that, despite wide holes in the sanctions regime, Saddam was still so wary of international scrutiny that Iraq had no active nuclear, biological, or chemical programs, and had not had them for years. Containment worked on the Soviet Union, and the ISG -- tragically, only after the invasion -- proved that it was also working on Iraq

Thoughts USMB?