Halpern: At last, Obama understands Iran's real intentions - now what can we do?

I'm thinking

by Micah D. Halpern

Issue of February 19, 2010/ 6 Adar 5770

Foreign affairs should never turn into a game of “I told you so.” The stakes are too high, the rules too complicated and the game itself never really ends. Relationships and situations change. Goals and incentives are adjusted and readjusted. And things could always get worse.

The Obama administration has finally come to the realization that Iran’s leadership is not interested in compromise. They now realize that Tehran is playing a game in order to buy the time needed to further entrench their country in a now unstoppable race to develop and produce nuclear technology.

The problem is that over the past thirteen months the United States has been playing the game of Clue-less while the Iranians have been playing Stratego. And in that time Iran has made tremendous strides in the procurement of nuclear materials and technology.

A political learning curve is charted from the time a new political person of power enters into that position of power until the time at which that person has learned to develop policies that are effective and attainable. Barack Obama thought he could skip the learning curve part of his presidency. His administration immediately endowed the Iranians with the benefit of the doubt.

Iranians knew exactly what they were doing - more significantly, they knew exactly what the new American president was doing. Iran exploited the new administration’s optimism and naiveté. As soon as the election results became clear, Iran knew that Obama would approach them very differently than did the Bush Administration. Iranian leadership knew that Obama’s approach would be to allow them a fresh start and assume that they would “listen to reason.”

Iran saw the opportunity and seized it. They realized that by the time Barack Obama and his administration realized what they were up to, they would be so far along in their nuclear quest that they would never have to turn back. And they were right. We can no longer ask if the Iranians are on the road to nuclear development.

The only questions we now can ask of Iran are: have they set the date yet and under what conditions will they reveal their end game. And the questions we must ask ourselves are: is there any way for us to monitor what is happening in Iran and is there any way to prevent Iran from using the nuclear weapons they are developing.

Finally, Washington realized that they were being played like the proverbial fiddle. Iranians were never truly interested in serious negotiations.

What the Americans thought of as negotiations, the Iranians knew to be manipulations. Iran gave the West hope in order to exploit its own need for time. And so the United States changed the deadline for Iran to come on board and come clean about their nuclear aspirations from August to the beginning of September.

Then they relaxed the deadline again, this time until the United Nations General Assembly convened at the end of September, then again to December and then again until the end of the year 2009. And with each extension, the world became a much more dangerous place for the rest of us.

Now it is February and subtly, without most Americans realizing what is happening, United States foreign policy towards Iran has begun to change. “I told you so” won’t help. There is no turning back the clock. These past thirteen months have given Iran the great advantage. The danger is now palpable. Iran’s disdain is directed at the United States, at Israel and at the West as a whole.

But our hands are not tied; our death sentence has not yet been signed. There are actions we can and must take to save ourselves from the danger that is present-day Iran. Our first step is more and serious sanctions. Our second step is crippling Iran’s oil economy. Our third step is promoting regime change. None of this is easy, but it is all attainable.

Tehran is a threat. Washington is now taking that threat seriously.