David Corn

In response to Iran's announcement that it had tested nine missiles, Barack Obama released this statement:

These missile tests demonstrate once again that we need to change our policy to deal aggressively with the threat posed by the Iranian regime. Through its nuclear program, missile capability, meddling in Iraq, support for terrorism, and threats against Israel, Iran now poses the greatest strategic challenge to the United States in the region in a generation. Now is the time to work with our friends and allies, and to pursue direct and aggressive diplomacy with the Iranian regime backed by tougher unilateral and multilateral sanctions. It's time to offer the Iranians a clear choice between increased costs for continuing their troubling behavior, and concrete incentives that would come if they change course.

Is Obama talking too tough? Is Iran really the "greatest strategic challenge" to the United States in the region? Is Obama hyping the supposed Iranian threat in a manner that could help hawkish John McCain, whom Obama will likely not be able to out-hawk in the general election?

Military analysts told Reuters that these missiles did not pose much of a threat. But that doesn't stop them from becoming a top political story. And Obama's in a difficult political spot. If he doesn't use harsh rhetoric in bashing Iran, he will be accused of being soft. If he describes the Iranian challenge in dire terms, he could boost McCain's case for the presidency. After all, which candidate will voters assume to be more likely to use extreme measures--including military action--against Iran? Remember when McCain sang, "Bomb, Bomb Iran"?

For a more nuanced view of the Iran challenge, let's turn to an op-ed written in May by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter, and retired Lt. General William Odom, a former National Security Agency chief during the Reagan years who died a few weeks ago. The pair noted:

Current U.S. policy toward the regime in Tehran will almost certainly result in an Iran with nuclear weapons. The seemingly clever combination of the use of "sticks" and "carrots," including the frequent official hints of an American military option "remaining on the table," simply intensifies Iran's desire to have its own nuclear arsenal. Alas, such a heavy-handed "sticks" and "carrots" policy may work with donkeys but not with serious countries.....

Consider countries that could have quickly become nuclear weapon states had they been treated similarly. Brazil, Argentina and South Africa had nuclear weapons programs but gave them up, each for different reasons. Had the United States threatened to change their regimes if they would not, probably none would have complied. But when "sticks" and "carrots" failed to prevent India and Pakistan from acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States rapidly accommodated both, preferring good relations with them to hostile ones. What does this suggest to leaders in Iran?

....A successful approach to Iran has to accommodate its security interests and ours. Neither a U.S. air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities nor a less effective Israeli one could do more than merely set back Iran's nuclear program. In either case, the United States would be held accountable and would have to pay the price resulting from likely Iranian reactions. These would almost certainly involve destabilizing the Middle East, as well as Afghanistan, and serious efforts to disrupt the flow of oil, at the very least generating a massive increase in its already high cost. The turmoil in the Middle East resulting from a preemptive attack on Iran would hurt America and eventually Israel, too.

Given Iran's stated goals -- a nuclear power capability but not nuclear weapons, as well as an alleged desire to discuss broader U.S.-Iranian security issues -- a realistic policy would exploit this opening to see what it might yield. The United States could indicate that it is prepared to negotiate, either on the basis of no preconditions by either side...or to negotiate on the basis of an Iranian willingness to suspend enrichment in return for simultaneous U.S. suspension of major economic and financial sanctions.

Such a broader and more flexible approach would increase the prospects of an international arrangement being devised to accommodate Iran's desire for an autonomous nuclear energy program while minimizing the possibility that it could be rapidly transformed into a nuclear weapons program. Moreover, there is no credible reason to assume that the traditional policy of strategic deterrence, which worked so well in U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and with China and which has helped to stabilize India-Pakistan hostility, would not work in the case of Iran. The widely propagated notion of a suicidal Iran detonating its very first nuclear weapon against Israel is more the product of paranoia or demagogy than of serious strategic calculus. It cannot be the basis for U.S. policy, and it should not be for Israel's, either.

Brzezinski and Odom explicitly rejected the carrot-and-stick approach. Brzezinski is a foreign policy adviser for Obama, but it's unclear from Obama's statement how much Obama has been influenced by Brzezinski on this issue. His statement calls for aggressive diplomacy, but it also depicts Iran as an immediate danger and seems to imply Obama's support for a carrots-and-sticks approach (although without specifically threatening military confrontation). Is he raising expectations? Consequently, at some point between now and Election Day, will Obama have to be more specific in detailing those sticks?

Policy aside, can a U.S. presidential candidate get elected denying that Iran is an immediate danger and noting that the United States and the rest of the world could live with an Iran that has developed nuclear power and perhaps even nuclear weapons? (Imagine the negative ads!) This current round of what-to-do-about-Iran demonstrates that Iran will continue to be a tough call for Obama and the issue could become tougher for him to finesse.