THE IRANIAN DILEMMA

Now what? That is the question they are no doubt asking themselves in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin as the President of Iran announced yesterday that they have begun the process of enriching uranium, and they are not going to stop. Is this process now unstoppable? Is it, as Bill Kristol writes, unacceptable, just as the military re-occupation of the Rhineland by Hitler was unacceptable to Paris and London in 1936? Is there an international diplomatic solution, like one advocated by Brent Scowcroft? Or is military action designed to topple the regime the only way to go? Do we have a few more years before they can build a bomb, or only a few weeks or months? If military action is undertaken, will the coalition of the willing include only the United States? Mark Helprin paints a disturbing picture of what might happen after diplomacy fails.

In this war with a newly revived militant Islam, we think systematically and they think imaginatively. As we strain to bring the genius of imagination to our systems, they attempt to bring systematic discipline to their imagination, and neither of us is precluded from success. Despite our superior power, its diminution by geography, overcommittment and politics means that they might confound us. And because they believe absolutely in the miraculous, one must credit their stated aim to defeat us in the short term by hurling our armies from the Middle East and in the long term by causing the collapse of Western civilization.

If, like his predecessors Saladin, the Mahdi of Sudan and Nasser, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad goes for the long shot, he may have in mind to draw out and damage any American onslaught with his thousands of surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft guns; by a concentrated air and naval attack to sink one or more major American warships; and to mobilize the Iraqi Shia in a general uprising, with aid from infiltrated Revolutionary Guard and conventional elements, that would threaten U.S. forces in Iraq and sever their lines of supply. This by itself would be a victory for those who see in the colors of martyrdom, but if he could knock us back and put enough of our blood in the water, the real prize might come into reach. That is: to make such a fury in the Islamic world that, as it has done before and not long ago, it would throw over caution in favor of jihad. As simply as it can be said, were Egypt to close the canal, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to lock up their airspace -- which, with their combined modern air forces, they could -- the U.S. military in Iraq and the Gulf, bereft of adequate supply, would be beleaguered and imperiled.

In trying to push the Iraqi snake by its tail, we have lost sight of the larger strategic picture, of which such events, though very unlikely, may become a part. But because the Iranian drive for deployable nuclear weapons will take years, we have a period of grace. In that time, we would do well to strengthen -- in numbers and mass as well as quality -- the means with which we fight, to reinforce the fleet train with which to supply the fighting lines, and to plan for a land route from the Mediterranean across Israel and Jordan to the Tigris and Euphrates. And even if we cannot extricate ourselves from nation-building and counterinsurgency in Iraq, we must have a plan for remounting the army there so that it can fight and maneuver as it was born to do.

It all boils down to a few simple steps that are far easier said than done, and a few assumptions that have to be made but cannot be proved. If you assume that all actors in this drama are rational, and that the Iranians really are trying to build a nuclear weapon despite their denials, then diplomacy backed by the determination to use force can work, but only if the international community as represented by the big powers are united in their opposition to the Iranians. The unwillingness of the Russians and Chinese to do anything substantive to deter the Iranians from building nuclear weapons will scuttle any diplomatic solution, because the Iranians will know that there is no credible "stick" to go along with any "carrots". If you assume the Iranians really just want nuclear power, and not nuclear weapons, then a diplomatic solution is possible, along the lines proposed by General Scowcroft. But, if the leaders of Iran are not rational, at least in the Western sense, then all bets are off. Traditional diplomacy will not work, and a military response, while it might delay their program, will probably elicit a damaging and potentially disastrous counter-stroke.

So, what to do? Assuming that the Iranians really do want to build a nuclear weapon, and diplomatic efforts to prevent that are doomed to failure, and that we cannot live with a nuclear Iran, then, in order to succeed with the military options, the following conditions should be met. First, public opinion in the U.S. must be securely behind any military action against Iran. Second, the military option must be sufficient to not only destroy the nascent nuclear capability, but also to topple the regime. Third, sufficient force must be in place to keep the lid on in Iraq and Afghanistan and, as Helprin writes, there must be sufficient capability in place to secure our forces in the Middle East and the flow of oil to the nations of the world.

So simple to say or write, not so simple to do, eh? Which is why I predict we will hear a growing chorus of voices saying that we can live with a nuclear Iran, just like we are living with a nuclear North Korea. Even though they face a greater danger, the Europeans are not willing to go to war with Iran over this issue, which is why President Chirac invoked his country's nuclear deterrent in a recent set of remarks as a response to nuclear terror. Deterrence and containment will be words we hear and read again and again over the next few months and years.

But, as I have written before, while I feel secure in predicting a passive response from the Europeans, and somewhat less secure in predicting no military action from the Bush Administration acting alone, I cannot predict with certainty that the Israelis will not mount some sort of pre-emptive attack, either with their conventional or nuclear weapons. They are the wild card. Only the Israelis face an existential threat from a regime whose leader has vowed to wipe them off the map.

As Betty Davis once said, "Fasten you seat belts, boys and girls, it's going to be a bumpy ride".