Iranian Options

If it wasn't already clear, the mullahs have reiterated that they're going to go nuclear and that's all there is to it (via Blogs for Bush):

In Tehran and here on the world stage, an emphatic Iran said Tuesday it will press on with its uranium-enrichment technology, a program that has drawn Washington's fire and ratcheted up global nuclear tensions.

I think the mullahs are convinced that they'll have the "Islamic bomb" before we can build up a campaign to "pre-empt" them. And it's hard to argue with that conclusion.

I've been saying for several years that liberating Iraq was only the first step, and that Syria and Iran must be overrun and freed as well. But I just don't see that happening.

One reason is that we just don't have the military capability to take out Iran - which is four times Iraq's territorial size with more than twice the population - while still heavily engaged in Iraq and with other flashpoints like the Taiwan staits and Korean peninsula to worry about. That's why even this WND report admits that we would prefer the Israelis to do much of the heavy lifting of Project Daniel.

Another reason to keep in mind, though, is that the Bush Administration may not have the stomach for another Middle East military campaign after all the guff it took over Iraq. Indeed, it seems clear, with the President's emphasis on democracy, that they never intended to go beyond Iraq, but to use its rehabilitation as an example that would undermine the surrounding autocracies and theocracies without having to fire an additional shot.

That would be a sound strategy - it worked to perfection against the old Soviet Union, after all - if there was time for it to play itself out to a similar conclusion. The mullahs clearly recognize this, and that's why they're hell-bent on getting nukes before they can go the way of Saddam.

They're not going to go quietly. And the Bushies have tired of the "noise."

I don't question the President's resolve - far from it - but his options just may be a lot less robust.

Of course, not everybody sees it this way. Michael Ledeen, for instance, continues to believe that all we need to do is give rhetorical support to the Middle East forces of democratic revolution.

It is long past time for the President to show that he is serious about winning the war against terror; it can't be done by speeches alone, and it doesn't require armed invasion. But it does require action: political action to support and aid the forces of democratic revolution in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

However, we're not even doing that much:

All of this [anti-mullah demonstrations across Iran] is public information, yet we do not hear it from our leaders, and the silence in Washington must be terribly discouraging to the Iranian people. It will get even worse if the Rafsanjani ploy or others that will follow are taken seriously by our diplomats, as they surely will by those Europeans eager to continue to do business in Iran and restrain the United States from pursuing regime change there.

We dawdle at our peril, and yet we dawdle.

To continue to say "faster, please" is like spitting into the wind. We're back at September 10, waiting for our enemies to rouse us from our contented torpor.

On the other hand, there are others who believe that we're going to do a lot more:

Both the original Gulf War and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan sent one big message booming across the post-Cold War world: If you do not have nuclear weapons, go get them or the U.S. will bitch-slap you into next week. This may not be the message the U.S. intended to send, but it was an unavoidable by-product of total American dominance in conventional arms.

Now as a result, the U.S. is reworking its nuclear doctrine to persuade non-nuclear states that getting nukes is not a reasonable course of action. Via an updated Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, U.S. theater commanders may soon get tacit, preemptive approval to use nukes against any foe who seems poised to use nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons against U.S. forces. In other words, the new big booming message will be: Fight a conventional war you are sure to lose, or we'll nuke you and not even think very hard about it before we do. Perhaps not very fair or proportional under old notions of just war, but it reflects the struggle to recover some deterrence in this wacky world.

This has unquestionable application to the "Islamic Republic":

In many ways the harder case is Iran, which insists that it has a right to peaceful nuke power for electricity generation. The Bush Administration openly scoffs at the notion, arguing that a state sitting on millions of barrels of oil does not need nuke power plants, so obviously the Iranians are up to something. Of course, if you are sitting on millions of units of a highly tradable and valuable commodity you might opt to not to burn it to make electricity, and sell it to the world instead. Moreover, the Bush Administration holds that absolutely under no circumstances can Iran be trusted with enrichment facilities that might be switched from power plant to weapons-grade uranium output.

Here's the area upon which IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei is trying to find a middle ground. Would heightened inspections of Iranian facilities, along with guarantees that Iran would be able to get reactor ready-fuel, satisfy both sides? The early money says no because the Bush administration thinks el Baradei has already botched the inspections of both of Iraq and Iran, failing to find evidence of the nuke programs Washington was certain were in place.

This leaves the distinct possibility that Iran will leave the treaty talks with the intention of resuming what the U.S. regards as the forbidden enrichment of uranium. Should this happen sometime in June, which would correspond with an end to Iran's self-imposed six-month moratorium on nuke-related activities, the U.S. will face a clear test of nuclear wills.

In other words, right back to my main comments above. The Bushies are banking on the "street cred" they earned in Afghanisatan and Iraq to deter the mullahs from constructing nukes, and the Iranians are, apparently, convinced that we're bluffing and are fully intent on calling that bluff.

And if they do, then what? Can we take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities via conventional airstrikes? Do we invade outright? Do we enlist Israel's help? Do we go through the same song & dance with the UN or just blow them off like we should have in Iraq? On the one hand the White House is insisting that Iran will not be allowed to get nukes, period. On the other hand, the President has sent SecState Condoleezza Rice on that "charm offensive" to thaw relations with the very recalcitrant Saddamites in Old Europe who did their stubborn best to block Iraq's liberation, and who would be even more adamantly opposed to a repeat performance in Iran.

If I had to predict what comes next, I would guess covert operations against Iranian nuclear infrastructure and otherwise taking cover behind unilateral Israeli action, with no eye toward effecting "regime-change" in Tehran. The rapier thrust rather than the sledghammer blow. That would explain why we're not telegraphing such subversion by open backing of Iranian democratic elements and also why there's no Administration PR build-up toward "Operation Iranian Freedom" as there was via-a-vie Iraq.

As delightful as it would be to see the mullahs overthrown from within, I think that's a pipedream, and even if it wasn't, it would be highly unlikely to happen in time to keep nuclear weapons out of their hands. And as satisfying as it would be to let the tanks roll and drag away "Supreme Leader" Khamenei and ex-/future president Hashemi Rafsanjani in chains, it's at least questionable whether we can spare the forces necessary to do that, much less muster public support for the effort.

I don't think we're "back at September 10th." We just have a lot fewer resources to work with, and a lot less room in which to maneuver.

Unfortunately, the mullahs know it, too.

And that's why a "clear test of nuclear wills" is coming, quickly, one way or the other.