Iran knows why it wants nukes

CAPITAL JOURNAL: "U.S. Needs to Buy Time for Its Iran Plan to Work," by Gerald F. Seib, Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2010.

Seib makes the case for the US strategy of drawing out the time it takes for Iran to achieve a nuclear capacity, the main target being the bank accounts of the Revolutionary Guards.

Our big lever with the Chinese is described as being our description of the crazy Israelis ready to do something dangerous.

The big dream: getting Iran to re-accept the nuclear-swap deal that we thought was in place months ago. In that scenario, a trusted Core state would handle the enrichment. That's seen as buying a solid year.

Whoa dog!

Then, allegedly, we search for the next great delay tactic.

Seib sees this all as crucially worthwhile, because the time buys us space to bolster local defense of allies and wrap them all up in a joint-response scheme.

Then the dream extends further: convinced that they cannot intimidate their neighbors, Iran recalculates because of the economic pain and decides not to go nuclear.

This would be brilliant if any of it was relevant to their calculations, but none of it actually is.

Iran wants the bomb to stop a potential US invasion--plain and simple. It also knows that, by having the bomb, it enters an exclusive club that--for now--only Israel occupies in the region.

The leadership isn't stupid. They know that nukes will give them zero leverage locally in any operational sense. This is all about getting even with the U.S. and its nuclear ally in the region and guaranteeing a seat at any future table that explores the region's security.

But yes, I do expect the Iranians to continue dangling a seeming willingness to deal in the months ahead--anything to buy time and our further inaction (which is a pretty cheap deal right now, because we have little-to-no belief in the efficacy of any strike scenario).