Options on Iran

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With the Islamist regime in Tehran making clear that it has no intention of complying with U.N. Security Council resolutions on its nuclear weapons program, U.S. policy-makers appear to have yet come up with a clear response (judging from the public record.) Every major American politician, whether Democrat or Republican, says that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. President Bush last week stated the case with more urgency than anyone else, describing Iran's actions in Iraq as "murderous" and warning that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons technology "threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust."

Washington seemingly has three main options for stopping Tehran's efforts: 1) hoping a popular revolution would drive the current regime from power before it develops atomic weapons; 2) persuading Europe and Japan to deny credit to the Iranian government and support sustained economic sanctions against the government; or 3) using military force to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities and/or remove the current regime from power.

There are huge problems with each of these alternatives. For U.S. policy-makers, the preferable alternative would be a popular revolution, in which the Iranians overthrew a despotic regime. But for that regime change to actually serve larger U.S. geopolitical interests, it has to take place before Iran develops a nuclear weapon. To be sure, there is plenty of popular dissatisfaction with the regime. Public-opinion polls and random, discreet interviews with Iranians on the street conducted suggest that most of them want to be rid of the clerical dictatorship. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are running scared, and the regime has launched a wave of mass executions — several hundred are believed to have died, chiefly by hanging or stoning since late June.

Whether this can be translated into regime change before Iran obtains an A-bomb is anyone's guess. As for sanctions and economic pressure, they too have a role to play in pressuring the regime to change its policies. But international economic sanctions have a spotty record in this regard, and even if they do manage to force the regime to change its policies, how do we determine whether it stopped Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons?

Three days ago, the London Sunday Telegraph published a lengthy analysis suggesting that the Bush administration is set on a confrontation with Iran that will culminate in a bombing campaign to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, and that the White House (and in particular Vice President Dick Cheney) are very worried about the idea that President Bush would leave office with Iranian nuclear facilities still in place. Clearly, Mr. Bush finds the third option objectionable. But he has yet to come up with an effective plan for removing the Iranian nuclear threat.