Q: Why not just ignore Iran, and its fraudulent elections? What do we care?
A: Iran is a large nation that is gaining enormous influence in a volatile region of the world, supports anti-American and anti-Israeli terrorist organizations, possesses a lot of oil, frightens its Arab neighbors, and is led by a menacing demagogue hell-bent on acquiring nuclear technology.
Q: That sounds bad, but isn't Iran's desire to development nuclear energy understandable?
A: Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, is not truly interested in nuclear power. They want to be a nuclear power as in a nuclear military power.
Q: Don't India and Pakistan already possess nuclear weapons?
A: Yes, but adding Iran to the club is fraught with danger. When Pakistan acquired its nuclear capability, some Muslim commentators greeted the news joyously, calling it: "an Islamic bomb." Under that logic, Iran's would be a "Shiite bomb." The ascension of Iran's Shia ayatollahs has exacerbated historic and violent tensions between Sunnis and Shias - and militants in both sects compete with each other to see who can be more virulently anti-India, anti-America, and anti-Israel. It's not a good mix.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to his supporters at an election campaign in southern Tehran in May 2009.
REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi.
Q: Are Iranian leaders really murderous enough to contemplate annihilating Israel if they got their hands on nukes?
A: They talk s if they are. In 2005, shortly after assuming power, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserted that Israel should "be wiped off the map." It's a sentiment Ahmadinejad attributed to Iran's ranking cleric, the nation's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who never denied it, and it's a threat Ahmadinejad has subsequently repeated, in one form or another, many times.
Q: Is he a madman?
A: At the very least, he's imbued with a troubling mix of hatred and ignorance. Ahmadinejad routinely spins dark conspiracies about everything from 9/11 to the supposed "Zionist" influence over the international financial system. He's obsessed with denying the Holocaust, which he has called a "myth." This is darkly ironic, as the historic figure he most resembles when he rants about Jews is Hitler.
Q: It's easy to see why the Israelis don't want this guy with his finger on the button. Do they have a plan to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions?
A: In June of 1981, Israeli destroyed a nuclear reactor being constructed by the French for Iraq at a place called Osirak in the Iraqi desert with a daring daylight air raid by a squadron of Israeli F-15s and F-16s. The memory of that operation has prompted numerous commentators to opine that Israel has similar contingencies planned for Iran in the event of failure in the negotiations to forestall Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Q: Will those negotiations break down?
A: They essentially already have. Iran now insists that acquiring a nuclear capability is its sovereign right. The problem is that Iran's nuclear program isn't concentrated at a single reactor the way Iraq's was. It is believed to be dispersed throughout the country, protected in hardened bunkers, and shielded in a shroud of secrecy. It is unlikely that conventional air strikes could do anything more than temporarily slow the progress of Iran's nuclear program. A tactical nuclear strike and, yes, Israel is presumed to possess such weapons might do it, but that would also inflame Islamic and world opinion so much that Israel would be dangerously isolated.
Q: What about the United States?
A: America's armed forces could probably stop the program, but might have to occupy Iran to do it. And the U.S. military is already stretched to the breaking point in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Q: Is there any way to bring about regime change in Iran, then?
A: That is the key question, but the answer sounds like a Zen riddle: Perhaps the best thing the Obama administration can do is ... nothing. Ahmadinejad already blames the U.S. and Israel for all his own failings, and Ayatollah Khamenei issued a blistering attack on President Obama last week despite the fact that Obama has said little and done even less since Iranians have taken to the street to protest Ahmadinejad's election fraud. So siding too openly with the opposition might play into the regime's hands and backfire on the United States.
Q: So we just wait, and do nothing?
A: To reiterate: the fear of the Obama administration is that merely speaking out in favor of the Iranian opposition parties may compromise them. Insofar as armed intervention goes, after the U.S. experience in Iraq, it's clear to most experts that Iran is a problem with a diplomatic solution, not a military one. Partly we negotiate, partly we wait, and partly we just hope.