Small Carrots, Big Stick

During a visit to Louisiana today the president announced a reversal in United States policy towards Iran. As opposed to further isolating the country, the president announced that he is willing to allow Iran to petition for entry into the World Trade Organization and to purchase commercial airline parts. This approach is in concert with the efforts by Europe to offer incentives to Iran if they abandon their nuclear pursuits. On the face of it this does look like a major reversal in U.S. policy, but I tend to suspect that there are alterior motives behind today's announcement.

Entry into the WTO and permission to purchase airline parts are rather small carrots, and it isn't much to entice the mullahs to give up their nuclear program. My guess is the administration knows this, and when Iran does reject this offer, they can then go to Europe and say, "Look, you're diplomacy didn't work, now it's time to do things our way and get tough on Iran." This would mean passing sanctions against Iran in the Security Council and/or conducting military actions against them, either against suspected nuclear facilities or the regime itself.

In the long run Iran is never going to abandon their nuclear program, for they are a dictatorship who will do anything to maintain their grip on power. They find themselves increasingly isolated in the Middle East, where they and Syria are really the only two countries not making at least small steps towards democracy. This will make it harder and harder for the mullahs to maintain their power, which is why they will never abandon their nuclear program so long as they are in power, no matter how big the carrots that we offer them are. The above strategy by the Bush Administration will simply prevent us from engaging in an endless saga of cat and mouse with the Iranian regime, which will surely happen if the Europeans are left in charge.

By getting diplomacy out of the way now, diplomacy which is sure to fail, we strengthen our ability to act before Iran actually does develop a nuclear weapon(s).