Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons

What happened

The world was faced this week with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, as a United Nations report concluded that the Islamic Republic has secretly been working on bomb technology and will soon have the capability to build warheads. In a 25-page report based on satellite photos, inspections, and more than 1,000 documents, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) detailed for the first time what it called “credible evidence” that Iran has gathered the material, technology, and skills required to manufacture nuclear weapons. Not only has Iran continued to enrich uranium despite international sanctions, said the IAEA, but it has also conducted computer modeling of nuclear explosions and warheads and developed triggering devices. The report said Iran might already have enough nuclear material to build four bombs. Tehran dismissed the report as U.S.-inspired propaganda. “The Iranian nation is wise,” said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “It won’t build two bombs against 20,000 [nuclear] bombs you have.”

In response, the U.S. signaled it would seek more-severe international economic sanctions on Iran. Reports from Israel suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes an Iranian bomb would pose an existential threat to his country’s survival, and was seeking political support to launch airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. (See Best columns: International.) But Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the Israeli government would be content with “coordinated, international, lethal sanctions” on Iran. “We don’t want a war,” he said.

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What the editorials said

Tehran’s big secret is finally out in the open, said The Washington Times. But these revelations should come as no surprise. The “warning signs” have been apparent for almost a decade. “Yet we in the West dither,” said Investor’s Business Daily. Our pathetic economic sanctions have done nothing to dissuade this “Islamist version of the Third Reich” from building nukes, but targeted bombing strikes are apparently off the table. “Why sit idly as a terrorist nuclear storm gathers?”

Because aerial strikes on Iran would be a “nightmare,” said the London Guardian. The Iranians would immediately shut the Strait of Hormuz, strangling 40 percent of the world’s oil supply and plunging the West into economic crisis. Ground troops would be needed to reopen it, as “missiles rained down on Israel” from Lebanon and Gaza. Make no mistake, “this would be war.”

What the columnists said

Whatever the consequences of pre-emptive military strikes, said Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal, the alternative is surely worse. Under the “security of a nuclear umbrella,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would seek domination of the region and “perhaps an opportunistic war with Israel.” An Iranian bomb would also trigger a nuclear arms race in the “world’s most unstable region,” as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt all scrambled to catch up. A “short, concentrated aerial and naval bombardment” of Iran’s nuclear facilities by U.S. forces is the only option, said Benny Avni in the New York Post. It could hasten a rebellion against the mullahs, stop the nuclear program in its tracks, and “change the course of Mideast and world history.”

Attacking Iran would come at a terrible cost, said David Remnick in NewYorker.com. It would surely lead to a bloody regional war, and leave Israel under attack “and more deeply isolated than ever before.” The U.S. and Israel would do far better to pursue a course of “rigorous containment”—intensifying sanctions, building greater U.S. alliances with Arab states, and dampening Israeli tensions with the Palestinians. Containing the Iranian threat would be “complicated and costly,” but surely it’s preferable to all-out war.

In truth, there are “no good options here,” said Jeffrey Goldberg in TheAtlantic.com. Military strikes on Iran would be disastrous, but “learning to live with an Iranian bomb” would be a huge defeat for the U.S. and unacceptable to Israel. Obama’s only choice may be to “intensify the various subterfuge programs” currently operating against Iran—waging cyberwarfare with a Stuxnet 2.0 virus, for example—and persuading the mullahs that he’s serious about using military force. If the Iranians believe the threat of a U.S./Israeli military attack is real, they might still be persuaded to back away from the brink.