President Obama is now making some major decisions regarding Iran. Recall that he set a deadline of Sept. 30 for the start of talks regarding their nuclear program. If they didn’t play ball, the US was to seek severe economic sanctions against Iran in the UN, especially regarding gasoline imports (for some odd reason, Iran can’t make much gasoline, despite having lots of oil). Well, Iranian President A’jad and company came back with a counter-proposal for six-nation talks (including the US). These talks would NOT address the Iranian uranium program, under Iran’s proposal; but further talks about the nuke issue could be talked about at these talks. So Iran in effect answered the US by proposing to talk about talks, but that Iran’s best friends (China and Russia) also have to be there.

Various analysts feel that Iran is just stalling for time, given that they are within a year or so of having enough enriched uranium to build nuclear weapons. The US intelligence community just issued a report saying that Iran is not actively developing nuclear weapons at present; Germany’s BND intelligence agency reportedly feels that it is. Also, the IAEA seems to think that Iran is working on a nuclear explosion triggering device, along with a carrying-case intended to fit into a missile nose cone.

Nonetheless, President Obama has decided to take Iran up on its offer to talk about talks. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I myself am not sure. On the one hand, Iran seems like a bad guy that we should not seek an accommodation with, especially the current government in Iran. Iran seems to be moving away from being a fundamentalist Islamic state that maintains democratic traditions (even as it disregards other human rights), toward a military state ready to ditch democracy and mold Islamic doctrines as necessary to advance its purposes (i.e., expansion of economic and military power and the restoration of Persian hegemony over the Middle East). A move from bad to worse, in other words.

The Iranians are moving to establish control over Iraq and expand their power throughout the Middle East. They say right out loud that they wish to destroy the nation of Israel, and they are actively acquiring sophisticated weapons systems from Russia that make this more than an idle threat. Even if Iran doesn’t yet have a device that could set off a nuclear explosion, they are working hard to gain the raw materials needed to fuel such a device (i.e., enriched U235).

On the other hand, the USA has always been pragmatic in its foreign policy. We tend to back off from powerful nations whose threat to our interests is severe but manageable, even though we hate what they do and what they are all about. We went after Saddam Hussein in Iraq knowing that he couldn’t really hurt us, but we know better than to go after Kim Jong Il in North Korea because he can spill a lot of blood in South Korea, one of our vital trading partners. Throughout the 20th Century we’ve made accommodations with dictatorial regimes having terrible human rights records such as Russia and Saudi Arabia and China (and for decades we were close to Iran, when it was under the dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi). We’ve even allow our economies to become dependent upon their resources (oil, cheap manufactured goods, and capital). We have been willing and we remain willing to look the other way when other nations and internal groups plead for our help against their injustices. So why shouldn’t today’s Iran qualify for similar treatment, given its growing power?

Our military options against Iran aren’t so good. The Bush Administration’s invasion and nation-building efforts in Iraq have met with some success, but have severely depleted US military resources. A similar campaign in Iran would require three times as many troops and re-construction resources, given the relative sizes and populations of these nations. We could take out their nuclear facilities, or let Israel do that for us; but they would then mine the Strait of Hormuz, which would cause the price of oil to shoot skyhigh, thus crippling the world economic recovery that finally seems to be underway. We could well be in for 3 to 5 more years of economic contraction with increasing unemployment and growing poverty under that scenario. I.e., a second Great Depression could result; it’s much easier for Iran to get the mines in the water than it is for us to fish them out and restore calm and confidence in the oil markets. You never know if you got that last one or not, and the oil traders and insurance companies know that.

It’s also possible that A’jad and his new regime will present the President with a deal that wouldn’t sound all that bad. They would require two things: that we let them go nuclear, and that we allow them international recognition despite their recent repression of democracy. They want the US to acknowledge them as a world power. We would add another “I” to the BRIC equation (i.e. the list of upcoming world powers: Brazil – Russia – India – China). In return, they may offer us what Amir Taheri recently suggested: to help the US back out of its many expensive commitments in the Middle East (Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel) while allowing us continued preferential access to the oil resources we need.

The trickiest part would be Israel, of course. We obviously couldn’t acquiesce to their decimating the state of Israel and allowing its territory to be overrun by the Palestinians. But Iran might offer us a quiet compromise, i.e. that they would hold their nukes in check and allow Israel to live, so long as we recognize the Palestinian state and get the Israeli colonists out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Hey, Obama is already trying to stop Israel from further expansion there. The Iranians obviously have a lot of pull with Hamas. They could offer to broker an Obama-sponsored Israeli – Palestinian peace settlement, a deal that would offer Israel full recognition of its 1967 borders in return for Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza. Jerusalem would have to be shared. The Israelis and their powerful American supporters would hate that deal, but given their dependence on our military aid, they might not have much choice should the President take it.

So, in return for our allowing Iran to have its nukes, its hegemony in Iraq and elsewhere, and to have its theo-military dictatorship (with some residual democratic gestures, as in Putin’s Russia), we would be promised a mine-free Strait of Hormuz, unmolested access to oil, an end to the Israel-Palestine struggles, the guaranteed existence of a more humble Jewish state, a graceful exit from Iraq and Afghanistan, and a powerful Persian-Shia hand over the region to keep the worst instincts of the Sunni Arabs in check (hey, the Iranians are no fans of the Taliban or al Qaeda either).

Should President Obama take that deal? It would be a very dirty deal (but we’ve had worse in the past and in the present; our relationship with China is hardly an exemplar of edifying American principals). Obama will certainly be tempted. Hilary Clinton will argue that Iran can’t be trusted to such a momentous commitment; they see us as growing weaker and increasingly vulnerable over time, and will increasingly pull back from their end of the bargain once they receive what they want from us. Secretary Clinton will probably side with those who
feel that we have to stay tough and risk unpleasant economic consequences if we are to preserve our own status and respect on the world scene. We risk years of economic turmoil just as bad if not worse than those that we just went through; but our vision of worldwide human freedom and opposition to fascism is also at stake here. Is this a Winston Churchill moment, or is it just the kind of dealing that must take place in a high-technology, post-ideology interdependent world?

I myself am not making any bets on this one. All I can say for now is that this is one to watch. President Obama is quickly approaching a key decision point with regard to Iran. Will he play it as a Churchill would, as a Ronald Reagan would, or as a ‘new world man’? STAY TUNED!