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The National Interest
How to Stop the Iranian Bomb
by Geoffrey Kemp
. . . The Bush Administration has vowed to take pre-emptive action against regimes that pose such threats, so Iran's mullahs must be wondering if they are next in line for the application of U.S. force. After all, they more resemble Ba‘athi Iraq's leadership — an elite seeking but still lacking an operational nuclear weapons capability — than they do the leadership of their missile trading partner in North Korea, which appears to have put itself beyond relatively risk-free U.S. military action. The mullahs know that the United States already has sufficient military power in the region to reduce most of Iran's budding nuclear infrastructure to rubble within 48 hours. They know, too, that all international efforts, including U.S. economic sanctions, to dissuade Iran from the nuclear course short of using force have failed. They have well earned the right to be worried. So has the United States. Absent a fundamental change in the policy of the Iranian regime, especially its support for terrorism, or a change of the regime itself, the prospect of an Iranian bomb is very, very dangerous. The dangers fall into several categories. Nuclear weapons in the hands of the current regime would be regarded by its neighbors as a profound threat and would almost certainly stimulate interest in acquiring nuclear weapons in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The smaller Gulf Arab countries, meanwhile, are likely to call for a more explicit U.S. nuclear guarantee — and they might get it. Whether or not the United States agrees to a new iteration of nuclear guarantees, an Iranian nuclear capability, together with its missile program, will eventually threaten Europe, Russia and the United States itself. Such a capability would further harm the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (npt), whether Iran obtains the bomb legally by withdrawing from the Treaty, or illegally by violating it. And the bomb in the hands of the current Iranian regime could embolden it to provide more military and political support to the terrorist organizations Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, all pledged to destroy the state of Israel. In extremis, Iran could provide nuclear or radiological material to these groups. In light of all this, it may be satisfying to contemplate the expeditious destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities — and some Americans are arguing the case. But the use of force should be the very last resort in dealing with the problem of Iran's would-be bomb. . . .