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The Awaiting Iran Dilemma

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By MICHAEL GERSON Washington Post Writer's Group

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 11, 2008

A specter is haunting the presidential race - and it is not just the economy. It is the specter of a nuclear Iran.

Economic downturns are wrenching, but eventually cyclical. Nuclear proliferation is more difficult to reverse, creating the permanent prospect of massive miscalculation and tragedy. America's next leader may be known to history as the president who had to deal with Iran.

This topic received glancing attention in the second presidential debate. Barack Obama called a nuclear Iran "unacceptable." John McCain said this would raise the prospect of "a second Holocaust." But neither man seriously confronted the choices ahead.

Days earlier, at an event at the Nixon Center here, the former chief weapons inspector for the United Nations, David Kay, delivered a bleak assessment of Iranian capabilities and intentions. The Iranian regime, he argues, is about 80 percent of the way toward its nuclear goals - perhaps two to four years from "effective, deployable weapons."

Kay seems resigned to a policy of containment - holding Iran directly responsible if it transfers nuclear weapons to terrorists, providing nuclear guarantees to our friends in the region so they don't feel pressured to develop their own. Past nuclear proliferation to nations such as France and India, he argues, proved less destabilizing than many first feared.

The problem with this approach? Iran may be a different proliferation threat from any we have faced before. The regime cultivates ties to violent non-state proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories. Iran's religious radicalism introduces an unpredictable element of irrationality. And some future conflict between a nuclear Iran and a nuclear Israel could easily and quickly escalate.

What are the alternatives? Attempting to destabilize the Iranian regime from within - by covert action and support for dissidents - does not seem realistic on a four- or five-year timeline. American capabilities in this regard are limited, and Iranian repression of reformers is ruthless.

So if a nuclear Iran is truly unacceptable, we may be left with the use of military force. And this only seems credible under narrow circumstances. This may be the true test of the next president. It is difficult to imagine why anyone would covet the responsibility for that choice - but it is necessary to discern who is best prepared to make it.

Michael Gerson's column is distributed by Washington Post Writers Group

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