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Iran: The wrong options on the table
By Spengler

American journalist, essayist and satirist H L Mencken's dictum that every problem has an easy solution that is neat, plausible and wrong applies doubly to the Middle East. The George W Bush administration is divided over two neat, plausible and wrong solutions.

The recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) marks the momentary ascent of the "realists", who believe in balance of power and deterrence, and a defeat for the "idealists", who want


to export democracy to the region. Contrary to Cold War mythology, deterrence never worked, while pursuit of balance of power in history invariably led to the mutual annihilation of equally-balanced adversaries. With regard to Middle Eastern democracy, one might as well propose to export unicorns to Neverland.

The out-of-favor neo-conservatives complain of a "quasi-putsch" by the US intelligence community, as former UN ambassador John Bolton told Der Spiegel on December 9. Norman Podhoretz expressed "dark suspicions" about the intelligence community's motives on December 3 on Commentary Magazine's current affairs weblog.

Bush, if we believe Podhoretz, was about to attack Iran's alleged nuclear weapons capability except for the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) subterfuge. On the contrary, Bush has been playing cat-and-mouse with Tehran for more than two years. As I wrote on October 25, 2005, "I do not believe any formal understanding is in place, but the probable outcome is that Washington will refrain from military action to forestall Iranian nuclear arms developments, while Tehran will refrain from disrupting Washington's constitutional Potemkin Village in Iraq." [1]

The administration throughout has brandished the threat of military action against Iran, while offering a regional role for the Shi'ite power if it behaves. The White House has placed an exorbitant bet on Iran's willingness to cooperate. Last week, Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad attended the first summit meeting of the Gulf Coordinating Council including Iran, entering the conference hand-in-hand with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah. Iraq's National Security Advisor Mouaffak al-Rubaie on December 8 called for a regional security pact including Iran, and asked Iran and Saudi Arabia to forbear from supporting Shi'ite and Sunni combatants respectively. For reasons known only to themselves, the Saudis have decided that for the moment it is safer to keep the Persians inside the tent.

If Iran fails to cooperate, of course, the US will be shocked, shocked to discover that Iran has resumed its nuclear program. The Bush administration hasn't closed off its options. When nothing works, you do everything. That explains the NIE's peculiar formulation, which on the surface seems intentionally obtuse. Iran had a nuclear program until 2003, the US intelligence community now avers, but suspended it under international pressure, although Iran continues to keep the option open.

There are three components to a nuclear weapons system: the nuclear material, the bomb assembly and the delivery mechanism. Given that Tehran boasts of its progress in two of the three requirements, namely uranium enrichment (although only to fuel grade, not weapons grade) and missile development, the NIE makes no case to downgrade the Iranian threat. Instead, it is a purely rhetorical device to offer terms to the Iranians.

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his advisers promised the president an exit from Iraq in the form of a stable democracy. By flattering the president and encouraging him in the naive pursuit of his prejudices, the neo-conservative democratizers allowed Bush to paint himself into a corner. If there was a putsch, it took place a year ago, when Bush fired Rumsfeld and installed Robert Gates as defense secretary. Gates and the "realists" came in because they offered an alternative exit strategy from Iraq. Sadly, their position is quite as untenable as that of the democratizers.

Gates' most visible public policy intervention prior to his appointment was a report for the Council on Foreign Relations by an experts' group that he co-chaired with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor. The Gates-Brzezinski report stated, "Given its history and its turbulent neighborhood, Iran's nuclear ambitions do not reflect a wholly irrational set of strategic calculations." It blamed the United States for provoking Iran to seek nuclear weapons by invading Iraq, as in the excerpt below:

The elimination of Saddam Hussein's regime has unequivocally mitigated one of Iran's most serious security concerns. Yet regime change in Iraq has left Tehran with potential chaos along its vulnerable western borders, as well as with an ever more proximate US capability for projecting power in the region. By contributing to heightened tensions between the Bush administration and Iran, the elimination of Saddam's rule has not yet generated substantial strategic dividends for Tehran. In fact, together with US statements on regime change, rogue states and preemptive action, recent changes in the regional balance of power have only enhanced the potential deterrent value of a "strategic weapon".

In this exchange, Iran gives up nothing of importance, for the rage of the Iraqi Shi'ites will only wax over time. Tehran retains the option to stir things up in Iraq whenever it chooses to do so. Its capacity to do so will increase with time as Iraq grows less stable. Time is on the side of Tehran. Only with great difficulty could the US employ military means to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; once Iran has acquired them, the military balance will shift decisively in favor of the Iranians.

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