In judging the Administration's efforts to deal with Iran on nuclear issues, it is important to keep our eyes on the prize. The goal is maximizing U.S. security. The question is, what policy best serves that goal.

In an ideal world, Iran would recognize that its insistence on enriching uranium -- even to low-levels under safeguards for peaceful purposes -- is harmful to Iran's broader interests. It is hurting Iran's economy, stultifying its growth, isolating Iran in the world community and diminishing its influence in the region. Iran would simply suspend enrichment, shutter Natanz and declare that chapter in its history over.

In the real world, that is unlikely to happen and efforts to force it to happen -- whether by military attack or "crippling sanctions" -- are likely to make things worse.

Iran now has a huge economic and political investment in enrichment which it sees as its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Years of resistance to western pressure have inured Iran to sanctions and made standing on Iran's "right" to enrich for peaceful use practically a symbol of Iranian independence, supported by reformers and hardliners alike.

Given Iran's entrenched position, heightened sanctions and threats of attack are unlikely to succeed in stopping Iran from enriching.

Russia, China and the rest of the world are not going to line up to help us punish Iran for enriching uranium to low levels under safeguards at Natanz. Instead of de-stabilizing the regime or weakening its resolve, escalating economic sanctions in the present situation is far more likely to entrench hardliners in power and stiffen Iranian resistance on nuclear issues. Attacking Iran's open and safeguarded facilities would be a lawless act of agression that would do far more to provoke an Iranian nuclear weapon than to prevent one. more

While it is probably too late to stop Iran from enriching, it is not too late to keep Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

Unlike North Korea, there is no clear evidence in the public domain that Iran has yet tested a weapon, built a weapon, or even enriched uranium to a level that could be used in a weapon. more

What Iran is known to be doing is working on sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle technologies in both safeguarded and previously-unsafeguarded facilities while developing missiles that have both conventional and nuclear applications.⁴

These actions preserve a range of options, from maintaining a peaceful nuclear program, to using an ambiguous nuclear program as a bargaining chip, to developing nuclear weapons. Although it appears that Tehran remains intent on keeping such options open, Iran's ultimate choice may well depend on how the West plays its cards.

The key to maximizing our security is getting Iran locked in to a system of comprehensive safeguards and surveillance nationwide.

The best way to keep Iran from building a nuclear weapon is to do get Iran's nuclear program so embedded and enmeshed in comprehensive nationwide surveillance and control mechanisms that any effort to "break out" out from a peaceful program would be promptly detected and punished with a forceful western response.

In fact, erecting a nationwide surveillance net would make us much more secure that we would be if Iran simply closed the Natanz facility without agreeing to nationwide safeguards.

After all, common sense should tell us that if Iran does decide (or has decided) to pursue a weapon, it is far more likely to do so using clandestine facilities than by using an openly-declared facility at Natanz that practically has a bulls-eye painted on it. Yet the Bush Administration obsessed for six years with shutting down Natanz while doing little or nothing to get in place a comprehensive package of surveillance and safeguards across the rest of Iran. This makes no sense. more

The measures needed for an effective nationwide safeguards system in Iran have evolved over years.  They are well-known, highly intrusive and potentially highly effective. more

But they are not yet in place.  Moreover, these measures are voluntary under current law until a nation commits to them. They cannot be dictated. They have to be bargained for.⁵

Though Iran has vowed that suspending enrichment is off the table, Iran has repeatedly offered to accept comprehensive safeguards as part of a comprehensive package that recognizes Iran's basic right to enrich.

Tough, patient diplomacy is far more likely to succeed than ham-fisted threats, ultimatums and efforts at coercion.

Iran's rhetoric about the United States is frequently hostile or worse, particularly when it sees no prospect of conciliation on acceptable terms.  But Iran's rulers also have signaled that they want progress towards normalization of relations with the west, if it can be achieved on acceptable terms.

Iran made repeated overtures to the Bush Administration over the period 2002-2003, and also offered significant concessions on the nuclear file in discussions with the European powers during those years.  As mentioned, Iran has repeatedly offered to accept comprehensive safeguards on its fuel cycle activities as part of a package that recognizes Iran's basic right to enrich uranium for peaceful use.

Unfortunately, the United States ignored or spurned those overtures, thereby humiliating and undermining the moderate reformers who made them. Iran's leaders concluded that it was pointless to try to negotiate with the west, or at least with the Bush Administration, and that it would gain more with a hard-line approach.

This time around the Obama Administration should bargain in good faith and place the burden squarely on Iran to do the same.

Diplomacy needs time to work.

Sanctions were given six years and failed. Will diplomacy, when tried at last, be given only three months to succeed? Thirty years of hostility and six years of confrontation on an issue as hugely complex as the nuclear one are not going to be resolved by the end of this year. It is absurd to think otherwise.

There is ample time for diplomacy. Our own intelligence agencies believe Iran years away from any nuclear weapon, if it is pursuing one at all.

The Administration should not accept stalling, obviously, but it should give diplomacy reasonable time to succeed. It can use this time productively, both to negotiate directly with Iran and to quietly round up international support for a very strong response should Iran do anything that unambiguously signals a weapons intention - like producing high-enriched uranium.

Conclusion

After so many years of hostility and confrontation, no one should imagine that the diplomatic solution will be quick or easy. It may not be possible.

Nonetheless, coercive approaches have clearly failed. The current path leads straight to a wall: a Hobbesian choice between escalating to war or backing down embarrassed.