By John Bolton
Saudi Arabia Egypt Turkey and others will surely follow suit.
Negotiations grind on toward a fourth U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution against Irans nuclear weapons program even as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in New York to address the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. Sanctions advocates acknowledge that the Security Councils ultimate product will do no more than marginally impede Irans progress.
In Congress sanctions legislation also creaks along but that too is simply going through the motions. Russia and China have already rejected key proposals to restrict Irans access to international financial markets and choke off its importation of refined petroleum products which domestically are in short supply. Any new U.S. legislation will be ignored and evaded thus rendering it largely symbolic.
Even so President Obama has opposed the legislation arguing that unilateral U.S. action could derail his Security Council efforts.
The further pursuit of sanctions is tantamount to doing nothing. Advocating such policies only benefits Iran by providing it cover for continued progress toward its nuclear objective. It creates the comforting illusion of doing something. Just as diplomacy previously afforded Iran the time and legitimacy it needed sanctions talk now does the same.
Speculating about regime change stopping Irans nuclear program in time is also a distraction. The Islamic Revolutions iron fist and willingness to use it against dissenters (who are currently in disarray) means we cannot know whether or when the regime may fall. Long-term efforts at regime change desirable as they are will not soon enough prevent Iran from creating nuclear weapons with the ensuing risk of further regional proliferation.
We therefore face a stark unattractive reality. There are only two options: Iran gets nuclear weapons or someone uses pre-emptive military force to break Irans nuclear fuel cycle and paralyze its program at least temporarily.
There is no possibility the Obama administration will use force despite its confused and ever-changing formulation about the military option always being on the table. That leaves Israel which the administration is implicitly threatening not to resupply with airplanes and weapons lost in attacking Iranthereby rendering Israel vulnerable to potential retaliation from Hezbollah and Hamas.
It is hard to conclude anything except that the Obama administration is resigned to Iran possessing nuclear weapons. While U.S. policy makers will not welcome that outcome they certainly hope as a corollary that Iran can be contained and deterred. Since they have ruled out the only immediate alternative military force they are doubtless now busy preparing to make lemonade out of this pile of lemons.
President Obamas likely containment/deterrence strategy will feature security assurances to neighboring countries and promises of American retaliation if Iran uses its nuclear weapons. Unfortunately for this seemingly muscular rhetoric the simple fact of Iran possessing nuclear weapons would alone dramatically and irreparably alter the Middle East balance of power. Iran does not actually have to use its capabilities to enhance either its regional or global leverage.
Facile analogies to Cold War deterrence rest on the dubious unproven belief that Irans nuclear calculus will approximate the Soviet Unions. Irans theocratic regime and the high value placed on life in the hereafter makes this an exceedingly dangerous assumption.
Even if containment and deterrence might be more successful against Iran than just suggested nuclear proliferation doesnt stop with Tehran. Saudi Arabia Egypt Turkey and perhaps others will surely seek and very swiftly their own nuclear weapons in response. Thus we would imminently face a multipolar nuclear Middle East waiting only for someone to launch first or transfer weapons to terrorists. Ironically such an attack might well involve Israel only as an innocent bystander at least initially.
We should recognize that an Israeli use of military force would be neither precipitate nor disproportionate but only a last resort in anticipatory self-defense. Arab governments already understand that logic and largely share it themselves. Such a strike would advance both Israels and Americas security interests and also those of the Arab states.
Nonetheless the intellectual case for that strike must be better understood in advance by the American public and Congress in order to ensure a sympathetic reaction by Washington. Absent Israeli action no one should base their future plans on anything except coping with a nuclear Iran.
Mr. Bolton a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute is the author of Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations (Simon & Schuster 2007).
By John Bolton
Saudi Arabia Egypt Turkey and others will surely follow suit.
Negotiations grind on toward a fourth U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution against Irans nuclear weapons program even as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in New York to address the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. Sanctions advocates acknowledge that the Security Councils ultimate product will do no more than marginally impede Irans progress.
In Congress sanctions legislation also creaks along but that too is simply going through the motions. Russia and China have already rejected key proposals to restrict Irans access to international financial markets and choke off its importation of refined petroleum products which domestically are in short supply. Any new U.S. legislation will be ignored and evaded thus rendering it largely symbolic.
Even so President Obama has opposed the legislation arguing that unilateral U.S. action could derail his Security Council efforts.
The further pursuit of sanctions is tantamount to doing nothing. Advocating such policies only benefits Iran by providing it cover for continued progress toward its nuclear objective. It creates the comforting illusion of doing something. Just as diplomacy previously afforded Iran the time and legitimacy it needed sanctions talk now does the same.
Speculating about regime change stopping Irans nuclear program in time is also a distraction. The Islamic Revolutions iron fist and willingness to use it against dissenters (who are currently in disarray) means we cannot know whether or when the regime may fall. Long-term efforts at regime change desirable as they are will not soon enough prevent Iran from creating nuclear weapons with the ensuing risk of further regional proliferation.
We therefore face a stark unattractive reality. There are only two options: Iran gets nuclear weapons or someone uses pre-emptive military force to break Irans nuclear fuel cycle and paralyze its program at least temporarily.
There is no possibility the Obama administration will use force despite its confused and ever-changing formulation about the military option always being on the table. That leaves Israel which the administration is implicitly threatening not to resupply with airplanes and weapons lost in attacking Iranthereby rendering Israel vulnerable to potential retaliation from Hezbollah and Hamas.
It is hard to conclude anything except that the Obama administration is resigned to Iran possessing nuclear weapons. While U.S. policy makers will not welcome that outcome they certainly hope as a corollary that Iran can be contained and deterred. Since they have ruled out the only immediate alternative military force they are doubtless now busy preparing to make lemonade out of this pile of lemons.
President Obamas likely containment/deterrence strategy will feature security assurances to neighboring countries and promises of American retaliation if Iran uses its nuclear weapons. Unfortunately for this seemingly muscular rhetoric the simple fact of Iran possessing nuclear weapons would alone dramatically and irreparably alter the Middle East balance of power. Iran does not actually have to use its capabilities to enhance either its regional or global leverage.
Facile analogies to Cold War deterrence rest on the dubious unproven belief that Irans nuclear calculus will approximate the Soviet Unions. Irans theocratic regime and the high value placed on life in the hereafter makes this an exceedingly dangerous assumption.
Even if containment and deterrence might be more successful against Iran than just suggested nuclear proliferation doesnt stop with Tehran. Saudi Arabia Egypt Turkey and perhaps others will surely seek and very swiftly their own nuclear weapons in response. Thus we would imminently face a multipolar nuclear Middle East waiting only for someone to launch first or transfer weapons to terrorists. Ironically such an attack might well involve Israel only as an innocent bystander at least initially.
We should recognize that an Israeli use of military force would be neither precipitate nor disproportionate but only a last resort in anticipatory self-defense. Arab governments already understand that logic and largely share it themselves. Such a strike would advance both Israels and Americas security interests and also those of the Arab states.
Nonetheless the intellectual case for that strike must be better understood in advance by the American public and Congress in order to ensure a sympathetic reaction by Washington. Absent Israeli action no one should base their future plans on anything except coping with a nuclear Iran.
Mr. Bolton a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute is the author of Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations (Simon & Schuster 2007).
