Roger Cohen's unrealistic pragmatism

There was a good background piece at CFR, discussing Iran's intentions. It raised the issue of why we worry about Iran, if the UAE can actively pursue a nuclear program?

I suggest people read the CFR piece, and maybe yu can provide a reply, Daniel?

is that any deal wouldn't be with the US, but with the Obama Administration. It could easily be set aside by a new administration, and the Iranian leadership is definitely hoping to have a solution that lasts longer than four or eight years.

This is why dictatorships are easier to deal with than democracies. Democracies have frequent leadership turnovers with real changes, particularly in foreign affairs.

If you're the Iranian leaders, the US is an existential threat. That is, it's a threat simply because it exists. This is why having nukes is an imperative for them, and nothing we can do will stop them.

There may after all be Iranians aware that the last two countries to succeed in acquiring nuclear arsenals, of varying sizes, were North Korea and Pakistan, and that their success hasn't accomplished very much for either of them.

Sure, having nuclear weapons allows the Pakistanis to shake their fists at the Indians, and the North Koreans to shake their fists at everyone. That's about all it has done for either, though. Pakistan is a mess. North Korea has always been a mess. The pursuit of atomic weapons didn't cause every problem in these two countries, but neither did it solve any.

Nuclear weapons are expensive to acquire, more expensive to maintain. They require extensive security measures; in Iran, they would need to be subject to some understanding as to how responsibility for keeping, deploying and ultimately using them were to be assigned among the various power centers in the Iranian government. Iran without nuclear weapons is at risk of attack only because other nations fear it might acquire them; Iran with nuclear weapons is at risk of a first strike from the one country in the region than has them already and that fears, with some cause, that Iran might strike first if left to itself. Iran is also surrounded by non-nuclear Arab neighbors that might not stay non-nuclear for long once Tehran gets the bomb. Finally, in a world of $100/barrel oil, a nuclear weapons program might be an affordable luxury, even with the risks. Iran doesn't live in that world right now.

Nuclear weapons, in short, are a lot of trouble. If the United States needs a realist perspective on Iran's nuclear program, surely one component of it ought to be consideration of what a realist perspective in Tehran might look like. Granted that there is every likelihood that national pride arguments -- that's really all they are, as they were in Pakistan over a decade ago -- for acquiring nuclear weapons will remain attractive to many Iranians. Even the "we have to have nukes because the Israelis have them" argument may make sense to the majority of Iranians unaware that Iran long maintained cordial relations with Israel but now quarrels with the Jewish state because its own government has chosen to and for no other reason.

It is still passing strange that successive American administrations have followed a public line that reinforces the Iranian government's rhetoric about foreigners' determination to deprive Iran of its "rights" and national aspirations. Iran has interests, too; the Tehran regime doesn't necessarily have the last word on what Iranians consider those to be. There is a good case to be made that Iran could gain a great deal more by bargaining away its pursuit of nuclear weapons than it could by throwing money that could be used for development at it, but the American government is not making that case at the moment.

A question to my realist colleagues here at FP -- why on God's green earth would Iran ever accede to an agreement whereby it gives up any autonomy in its nuclear program?

Why do you assume that autonomy is the chief Iranian value? People exchange degrees of autonomy all the time for more security, prosperity and influence. Why is Iran any different? I assume most Iranians are a bit tired of being isolated, threatened, surrounded and artificially poor. Surely the allure of a more normal national life, less strained international relations and the liberation of economic potential carries some force. And Iran's government knows that its long-term health depends on delivering on the aspirations of its people. It's quasi-democratic system of government means that the mullahs can't keep the lid on these aspirations over time, even if they were disposed to do so.

You seem to be convinced that Iran is inherently and perpetually a state of revolutionary fanatics who will sacrifice every kind of material benefit for the sake of precious independence and purity.

People exchange degrees of autonomy all the time for more security, prosperity and influence. Why is Iran any different? I assume most Iranians are a bit tired of being isolated, threatened, surrounded and artificially poor.

Sure, but the iranians say they don't have a nuclear weapons program at all. They say they don't let us inspect all of their nuclear power program because they think we'll bomb it anyway, or give israel the precise coordinates to bomb it. And isn't that a valid concern?

We've been treating iran as The Enemy since 1979 or so. Why would they think we'd do any different if they conceded on this one issue? So OK, it wouldn't be enough for them to promise us they won't make nukes. They've already done that and we didn't believe them. So they'd have to let us search anywhere in iran we wanted to, looking for nukes. They'd have to let us investigate all of their military installations and government buildings, and get GPS settings for every one of them so if we ever did decide to bomb them we could take out whatever we wanted easily. Maybe then we'd feel safe from iran.

If they agreed to that, would we start being nice to them? Wouldn't we instead brag about how powerful we are and how we made them back down, and we'll do the same to any of our other enemies?

Things have changed since 2003 when, after our decisive victory over iraq Cheney announced that iran was next. But given US public statements, should they expect we're more likely to invade iran if we think they are building nukes, or if we think they aren't?

We treated them like The Enemy before we thought they were making nukes. Would we treat them better if they agree not to? If they were no threat at all?

To 'reign in'? I can accept spelling mistakes, but this...

or are NIEs not alarmist enough for certain hysterics