■"A Firebrand in a House of Cards," op-ed by Dariush Zahedi and Omid Memarian, New York Times, 12 January 2006, pulled off web.

■"Iran's Nuclear Challenge," editorial, Washington Post, 12 January 2006, p. A20.

■"Russia Won't Block U.S. on Iran: Commitment Is Cited by Officials Pressing for IAEA Vote," by Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, 12 January 2006, p. A18.

■"Help Us, America ...," op-ed by Farouz Farzami, Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2006, p. A12.

■"Let's make sure we do better with Iran than we did with Iraq: The west's next step on Tehran's nuclear plans should be to understand the regime and society, not to start bombing," op-ed by Timothy Garton Ash, Guardian, 12 January 2006, pulled from web.

■"U.S. Ratchets Up Pressure on Syria In Hariri Probe: Answers Are Sought in Death of Ex-Lebanese Premier; Threat of Sanctions Looms," by Neil King Jr.,Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2006, p. A11.

The Iranians are weak, as a society, as the first op-ed argues, but expecting the hardliners to give into Russia's offer to process their uranium just doesn't make any sense. Iran doesn't want nuclear power for the power, but for the bomb. It wants the bomb because it fears U.S. invasion. It will fear that invasion until it gets the bomb or gets something like it from the U.S. in terms of guarantees. Such guarantees can't happen unless we somehow co-opt Iran strategically. If we did that, the hardliners' arguments are easier for competing factions within Iran to dislodge, but so long as we work to isolate Iran and promise "grand bargains," in the muddle logic of the mocking WP editorial, where we give them some carrots and expect them to go along with feeling deeply insecure about U.S. power and presence in the region, we only strengthen the hardliners' position.

The hardliners can hold out, if we choose to make the Iranian people choose between nationalism and cooperation. We need to give them a choice that is both nationalistic and cooperative ... duh!

And that's why I argue for co-optation that gives Iran's leadership a sense of security and invites the government, slowly but surely over years, into a cooperative security relationship with the U.S. and Russia and China and India and ... okay ... the Europeans too.

Whether we realize it or not, Russia and China and India have ALREADY chosen on Iran: they want its oil and they can wait pretty much forever on reform (much like us with the House of Saud ... so put that stone down right now, my fellow sinner!).

We are told by some, like the Iranian journalist in the WSJ op-ed ("forbidden to publish in her own country" ... no doubts there), that our pressure on Iran reveals fissures in their political system. True. But guess what? They've been there for years. By continuing the pressure, we just help the hardliners in the government, while not taking advantage of what allies might be found in the mullahs (yes, Virginia, not all are nuts) and especially in the parliament (closest to the pissed-off public).

Now, for something completely different: common sense from Timothy Garton Ash, an all-around brilliant fellow who's been doing this stuff for years and years:

The European policy of negotiated containment, mistrustfully backed by America and ambiguously accompanied by Russia, has failed. It was worth trying, but it was not enough. The Europeans did not carry sufficiently credible sticks and the Americans did not wave large enough carrots to sway the theocrats in Tehran. Neither half of the old transatlantic west could induce oil-hungry China and energy-rich Russia to play the diplomatic game sufficiently clearly our way.

The seemingly half-crazed new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would probably regard a cost-benefit analysis as an invention of the Great Satan and a prime example of western secular decadence. Allah, he would say, is not an accountant. Yet if cooler heads in the regime behind him are making a cost-benefit analysis, they could still conclude that this is a risk worth taking. The mullahs are floating high on an ocean of oil revenue: an estimated $36bn last year. This money can be used to buy off material discontent at home.

They know that the US is deeply mired in neighbouring Iraq, where the Iranians wield growing influence in the Shia south. As President George Bush might privately put it, Tehran has Washington by the cojones. The mullahs also know that China (which has a large energy-supply deal with Iran) and Russia have very different interests from Europe and the US; and they know that countries like Germany and Italy will be deeply reluctant to let sanctions restrict their lucrative trade with Iran. That's a strong hand.

Everyone seems to agree that the next major step is for the matter to be referred to the UN security council. Even the Bush administration, so contemptuous of the UN during the Iraq crisis, now regards that as Plan B. What then? The security council raps Tehran over the knuckles. President Ahmadinejad says go to hell. The security council comes back with sanctions, which would be limited by the geopolitical and energy interests of China and Russia, and the economic interests of Germany, Italy and France.

Iran continues (overtly or covertly) with uranium enrichment, while those sanctions produce a growing siege mentality in the country. The regime will tell its people that they are being unjustly and hypocritically punished by the west, merely for developing nuclear energy for peaceful use, as Iran is entitled to do under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Compare and contrast Washington's treatment of nuclear India! Many will believe that propaganda -- which, like all the best propaganda, contains a grain of truth. External pressure, in this form, could thus consolidate rather than weaken the regime.

I could not concur more, as readers of this blog may attest.

Unfortunately, Ash punts at the conclusion of his article, saying we shouldn't bomb because it will just turn the pro-West Iranian public against us, but that we should take the threat of a "fragmented" (good term) Iranian government holding the bomb seriously. Then he says we need to share info with the Europeans and think this thing through before doing anything rash.

Since the man has ruled out all the stupid and ineffective routes, what remains, ipso facto, is the co-optation route that crowds out the nuts in the Iranian government by rewarding the realists. But Ash doesn't go that far. Too bad.

Too bad that the U.S. government (meaning State) isn't smart enough to realize the same dynamic is likely to occur with Syria, where, if we were in the business of co-opting Iran, we'd have a real chance with such pressure.

As it is, we're likely to waste our time on these efforts too, although Damascus isn't swimming in a sea of oil profits (thanks to China and India ratcheting up global demand, not the invasion of Iraq), so there's some hope.