Real realism on Iran

OP-ED: The U.S.-Iranian Triangle, By ROGER COHEN, New York Times, September 27, 2009

Cohen continues to be sensibly brilliant, if I can use such a phrase, regarding Iran (and yes, I pat myself on the back by extension):

I've said this before: Sanctions won't work. Ray Takeyh, who worked on Iran with Dennis Ross at the State Department before losing his job last month and returning to the Council on Foreign Relations, told me that "sanctions are the feel-good option."

Yes, it feels good to do something, but it doesn't necessarily help. In this case, sanctions won't for four reasons.

One: Iran is inured to sanctions after years of living with them and has in Dubai a sure-fire conduit for goods at a manageable surtax. Two: Russia and China will never pay more than lip-service to sanctions. Three: You don't bring down a quasi-holy symbol -- nuclear power -- by cutting off gasoline sales. Four: sanctions feed the persecution complex on which the Iranian regime thrives.

I continue to guide my thinking by Takeyh and Nasr, so the citation appeals to me.

But Cohen gets more interesting (and even more in line with my stuff) when he writes:

Isolated, nuclear negotiations will fail. Integrated, they may not. Iran's sense of humiliation is rooted in its America complex; its nuclear program is above all about the restoration of pride. Settle the complex to contain the program. Triangulate. Think broad. Think E.U., not Versailles.

Good, but not far enough. You get the EU once NATO is set. NATO was not really set until SALT. Be realistic about the path we're on here. There are no assurances that will satisfy Iran in its reach for the bomb.

Comments

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Good article by Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek, www.newsweek.com/id/216702

Worth the read . . .

[anthony notarides]

I don't understand - If Iran gets a bomb and uses it won't the United States nuke the whole country of Iran. Is Iran that crazy or is that too simplistic? Also, does the idea if Iran gets a nuke then everybody gets a nuke sound like the domino theory.

[David Sutton]

I don't think Iran is so short sighted as to think that it can archive nuclear ascendancy and actual get to use its nukes. They realize full well the glass crater that lies down that path. What Iran seems to what, and Tom know far more about this than I do, is to own that legitimacy and the club status that comes with being in the nukes only club.

This is the argument I have at dinner parties, that a nuclear armed Iran actually poses no larger threat than a nuclear armed Israel or US or UK or whatever.

The limitations of actually using the weapons prohibit their use by all except madmen, and the Iranians know that they need to be as vigilant as any one in keeping the real crazies out of power.