Now is the Time for a Little Realistic Thinking
Fortunately, Iran's leaders have time to come to their senses. An Iranian regime may emerge that realizes that expensive nuclear programs that waste national treasure and provide no added security are a poor bargain. Other nations, including Brazil, Taiwan, South Africa and South Korea managed to do the math and scrap their nuclear ambitions. Perhaps Iran will as well.
The United States has made the Middle East safe for Iran. It also has the power to make the regime in Tehran feel a lot less secure if that regime pushes for the nuclear option. Now is the time for a little realistic thinking. Iran should immediately follow the spirit as well as the letter of the current prohibitions against developing nuclear arms.
That said, Iran may well not choose this course in the short-term. Nevertheless, U.S. policy should continue to push them to see the wisdom of this course in the long term. Regardless of Iranian intransigence at the present time, the United States should: (1) continue to press the issue at the U.N. Security Council; (2) press for targeted international economic sanctions, (3) lead a multi-national effort to interdict and prevent any illicit trafficking in prohibited materials or technology, and (4) demonstrate that it has the military capacity to safeguard U.S. interests and allies.
Now is not the time, however, to consider military action against Iran. The military options at America's disposal range from the "merely" troubling, difficult and expensive, to the truly horrifying.
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>"Now is not the time, however, to consider military action against Iran."
By what standard do you propose to judge when we should conduct military action? Do we wait for them to attack? Oh, wait, they've already done that. How big does the attack need to be (how many people killed)? How long do we have to turn the other cheek, to commit detente, to conduct dialogue, to engage diplomacy before it is appropriate for the US to have a military response? Because no answer is ever given, the implicit premise behind this statement is that it is never right for the most powerful and efficacious military in the world to defend itself, its citizens, its military forces by the use of military force.
The argument presented says, "The military options at America's disposal range from the "merely" troubling, difficult and expensive, to the truly horrifying." Yes that is what we want. If they thought it would be a cake walk or a welfare mission they would scoff as they are. Diplomacy without a reputation to back it up is worthless. The enemy needs to know " horrifying" is in the equation. Otherwise when and if they get to that stage of readiness it will be the U.S. saying we cannot face such awful power and must recapitulate. Being a superpower is of no use when facing up to conquest oriented zealots unless we confront them with the consequences and they know that we mean it.