Oblivion Strategy Guide

All options considered: dealing with Iran and its nuclear program

SEOUL,  August 4, 2011 — Of all the news that graced our newspapers recently – from the debt debate to the killings in Norway – the most interesting (for me) was a little-mentioned snippet about possible nuclear collaboration between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Though it hardly made the front pages this time around, sooner or later this news will balloon into the biggest foreign policy issue of the day.

The Saudi nuclear program, like the Iranian one, is “civil” in nature, though the line between a “civil” program and a “military” one has become rather blurry these days.

If the Obama Administration is serious about assisting Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program, they are bound to get clobbered from both the right and the left. As foreboding as Iran may be, Saudi Arabia worries Americans no less – and for good reason. The Saudis have contributed to terrorism; they spawned Osama bin Laden; they hate Israel; and they run a domestic policy which is anathema to every bone in our Western body.

It may come as a shock to some of our readers, then, that not only do I support “civil” nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia, I have advocated it for the last two years. Anyone or any administration which takes such a controversial position owes the world a good explanation, and that is what I intend to do for the balance of this essay.

But let me clarify at the outset that what follows is written only for those who believe or assume to make nuclear weapons and that success in this endeavor, being so clearly detrimental to American interests, must be prevented at great costs. Those who believe that a nuclear Iran is something that can be “lived with” (whatever that means), will this article a waste of time. But those who believe that the threat Iran poses is serious enough to warrant some sacrifice on Washington’s part will find a comprehensive analysis of all the options that are at Washington’s disposal.   

On Sanctions  

Thus far, the approach that the United States and its allies have taken toward Iran is best characterized as gradual escalation, in which one first applies threats, then sanctions, then “crippling” sanctions, then possibly (and one is not so sure of this) military action. At present, sanctions are being applied against Iran not only by the United States but by the European Union and Japan on an unprecedented scale. Even the Russians and the Chinese seem to be on board.