It's Just a Matter of Time

Iran will acquire nuclear weapons and there's nothing we can do about it. We might as well start planning for the eventuality because it's just a matteer of time. Am I stressed about this? Of course I am. But we possess a poor set of options. Let's look at the situation;

1. A country as rich as Iran, with ties so close to Russia and China, will get nuclear weapons if it wants them. There's simply no way around it. Pakistan and India both acquired such weapons despite the protests of the international community.

2. It is in China's national interest to create close ties with Iran because of China growing need for natural gas and petroleum. Expecting China to blindly follow our lead is childish. Especially when our economies are so closely linked (Bretton Woods 2). We enjoy our standard of living now because China foots the bill mostly. We are purely dependent on their economy growing. They know if most of us do not.

3. It is in Iran's national interest to acquire such weapons because it seems to be the only way they can definitively prevent invasion by America. To any other country, it can look like America does what it want regardless of anything. The only thing that gives us pause is nuclear weapons (see North Korea). This is an oversimplification but it's easy to see how many people in the world, even national leaders believe this.

4. The NPT, UN and IAEA have no teeth. I maintain that if the seals can simply be removed, it was folly to depend on them in the first place.

5. America can really do nothing here. The coutry is too divided on the Iraq war to make any definitive step towards nullifying this threat. The Democratic Party has found their hinge point and will use it to gain power regardless of the consequences as would have the Republicas if the situation was reversed. The media will not support any action and action is the only thing that has a chance of working if we want to take a hard line stance.

6. A hard line stance makes us look silly and impotent. We simply cannot engage Iran in a war and have any reasonable chance for success at this point in time. Everybody knows that. So playing hard guy is just an act and not a very good one. As the Keenanian admonition cautions us: "Never let your reach exceed your grasp."

7. The EU will do nothing either because they can't. Ever since 9/11, our forces have exponentially widened the competency gap between our military and that of any nation in the EU save perhaps Britain (and that's being very generous). Comparing a EU lead ground force to an American one would be similar to comparing a Pop Warner Football Team with the Super Bowl Champions. Yeah, it's the same game, but not really.

I'm a believer in Thomas Barnett's solution. It's risky and makes me seriously uncomfortable but I don't see any other realistic option. Iran is not a rational actor. And hoping that they will be seems silly at best and plain foolish at worst. But granting Iran the right to possess weapons seems a good way to open a dialog and we lose nothing because they are going to acquire those weapons anyway. We might as well forward think the issue and get ahead of it. And we can try to convince China that it is in their best interests to curtail Iran's radical tendencies. 1.2 Billion in natural gas contracts carries a lot more weight than our impotent threats. Not the best solution and one that feels like appeasement but often times, it's more important to be effective than right. In fact, knowing the difference is the sine qua non of true leadership.