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EDITORIAL: Iran in the cross hairs(Chicago Tribune (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 12--You might expect that a country facing the United Nations Security Council would cool the military bluster just a bit. Not Iran. It just keeps bullying along, daring the world to impede its accelerating progress toward building a nuclear weapon. In the last couple of weeks, Tehran has test-fired three missiles, including one that could carry multiple warheads and evade radar systems. "The world should not worry because any country has its own self-defense conventional military activities," said an Iranian official. The world isn't worried about Iran's conventional capabilities. It's worried, with good reason, that Iran will build nukes. The saber-rattling isn't limited to Iran. The Washington Post reports that the Bush administration "is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran." That includes the possibility of using tactical nuclear devices against buried targets, the Post reported. In The New Yorker, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh writes that the U.S. "has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack." In Hersh's telling, "Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups." It's difficult to decipher how much of this is real and how much is strategic bluster. On Monday, President Bush labeled these reports "wild speculation." But it's fair to say that Iran is now in the cross hairs, diplomatically and militarily. In the latest national security strategy report, the administration says, "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran." Of the current efforts to influence Iran, the paper says: "This diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided." That's blunt and chilling language. There are some who believe that a nuclear Iran is inevitable. But that group doesn't seem to include the Bush administration or Israel, both of which have apparently been planning for military action against nuclear sites in Iran. That is prudent. Iran, a major sponsor of terrorism around the globe, cannot be allowed to wield nukes. An attack would be a last resort and is fraught with huge risks. The targets are scattered, and many are deep underground. Iran likely would retaliate by roiling world oil markets and making more trouble in Iraq. The best way to solve this crisis still is through muscular diplomacy. So far, however, the Security Council is getting sand kicked in its face. A couple of weeks ago, in its first move against Iran, the council warned Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment activities and to cooperate with the UN's nuclear watchdog agency. Unfortunately, the initial statement, more of a throat-clearing, didn't include a hint of more serious consequences that could follow if Iran stonewalled the Security Council. So the council tossed the case like a radioactive potato back to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which had achieved nothing in years of wheedling, urging and cajoling Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The council requested a report from the IAEA in 30 days on Iran's compliance. Compliance? We'll spare you the suspense. Iran responded almost immediately with the expected message: Forget it. On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his nation has successfully enriched uranium for the first time. "I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries," he told a cheering audience. That's a pointed message to IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who is scheduled to visit Tehran this week to push the Iranians to freeze enrichment. The diplomatic timetable is not infinite. Experts differ on how long it will take before Iran can build a bomb. According to American intelligence estimates, Iran won't have a nuclear weapon until the early or middle years of the next decade. The Israelis reportedly believe the Iranians could have the capability of building one as early as 2008. It's clear that the council cannot agree--yet--on how to stop Iran. With China and Russia opposing sanctions, Tehran figures, correctly, it's got little to worry about in the near term. So what now? First, Bush and European leaders need to push hard on Russian President Vladimir Putin to wholeheartedly join the effort. Maybe he needs to be reminded of his country's embarrassment after recent efforts to negotiate a deal collapsed in the face of Iranian intransigence? Or that the Cold War is over and he's supposedly on the side of those who don't want Iran to get nukes? Even if Russia and China don't go along, the U.S. could form an effective coalition outside the Security Council with European and Asian allies. Sanctions could slow the regime's race for the bomb. Tehran would not welcome cuts of Western investment in developing the country's oil and gas industry, or of the billions in other trade that comes from the EU. Sanctions aren't perfect. They can take a long time to work, if they work at all. Innocent people can get hurt. But they're preferable to round after endless round of empty UN negotiation. That only increases the chance that soon Iran will end up solely in the military cross hairs. |