Richard Whalen

Can the U.S. make a deal with Iran that enables us to withdraw honorably from Iraq?

Yes, writes retired General William E. Odom, the senior military critic of the war and a brilliant strategist, “if the U.S. is willing to pay the price of dropping its ‘all sticks’ policy for stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Put plainly, the U.S. has two choices: it can have an Iran with nuclear weapons that refuses to cooperate on many shared interests. Or it can have an Iran with nuclear weapons that is willing to cooperate.”

Iran wants access to superior U.S. oil production technology. Increasing Iranian oil and gas production coincides with U.S. interests. Iran’s ties with Russia, Odom notes, “are without historical precedent and strained.” America offers more and better technologies than Russia across the entire array of modern nationhood.

A sticking point: Iran supports the terrorist Hezbollah in Lebanon, which threatens Israel’s security. This is a noteworthy departure from Iran’s cautious attitude toward terrorist groups and it reflects the rising influence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is beginning to function as a state within the Iranian state.

In negotiations with the U.S., Iran might well demand a guarantee against Israeli nuclear attack, which could not be undertaken without U.S. tactical and logistical support. If ever there was a time for the U.S. to reach out to peace-minded moderate elements in Iran and Israel alike, isolating the extremists and their “existential” war talk, it is now.

The U.S. has made the nuclear non-proliferation agreement a dead letter. As India and Pakistan have demonstrated, a nation determined to gain nuclear weapons capability can be sure of the U.S.’s opposition until it succeeds. Once nuclear weapons status is achieved, the U.S. has shown it will drop the subject and seek to improve relations.

The U.S. and Iran have begun to explore secretly the restoration of their relations within a more stable Middle East and Gulf region, no longer occupied by American troops. Within this context, the issue of Iraq’s postwar status and independence, free of foreign influence, will be resolved and the U.S. enabled to depart.

The presidential candidates who have issued statements on U.S.-Iran relations would split sharply over this approach. Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards would probably accept it, while Hillary Clinton might not. Among the Republicans, John McCain would reject it while Mitt Romney might accept it. Mike Huckabee has not yet made a statement about Iran.