From The Guardian:

Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, warned today that continuing divisions would lead to the collapse of the country’s ruling elite, after a former president called for a referendum on the government’s legitimacy.

The referendum call from Mohammad Khatami appeared to be part of an opposition strategy to keep Khamenei and allied hardliners on the defensive over last month’s disputed elections.

It coincided with a demand from Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading opposition candidate in those elections, for the release of opposition supporters detained for protesting against the official results, which gave a landslide victory to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Another former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, gave a speech at Friday prayers in which he said the Islamic Republic was in crisis and the government had lost the trust of millions of Iranians.

Khamenei, whose previously unquestioned authority is now under daily challenge, hit back furiously. “The elite should be watchful, since they have been faced with a big test. Failing the test will cause their collapse,” the supreme leader said, in a speech to mark a religious holiday, attended by government officials including Ahmadinejad, who sat on the stage behind him.

For some reason I don’t find the collapse of Iran’s ruling elite a disturbing prospect. Perhaps I’m not the target demographic.

The protests in Iran have entered a third week and the state media acknowledges that the death toll has reached 19 and that hundreds have been injured. Fareed Zakaria, a man not noted for idle leaps, proclaims, “we are watching the fall of Islamic theocracy.”

In an interview with CNN, he explains:

No, I don’t mean the Iranian regime will fall soon. It may — I certainly hope it will — but repressive regimes can stick around for a long time. I mean that this is the end of the ideology that lay at the basis of the Iranian regime.

The regime’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, laid out his special interpretation of political Islam in a series of lectures in 1970. In this interpretation of Shia Islam, Islamic jurists had divinely ordained powers to rule as guardians of the society, supreme arbiters not only on matters of morality but politics as well. When Khomeini established the Islamic Republic of Iran, this idea was at its heart. Last week, that ideology suffered a fatal wound.

When the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “divine assessment,” he was indicating it was divinely sanctioned. But no one bought it. He was forced to accept the need for an inquiry into the election. The Guardian Council, Iran’s supreme constitutional body, met with the candidates and promised to investigate and perhaps recount some votes. Khamenei has subsequently hardened his position but that is now irrelevant. Something very important has been laid bare in Iran today — legitimacy does not flow from divine authority but from popular support.

As for the United States,

I would say continue what we have been doing. By reaching out to Iran, publicly and repeatedly, President Obama has made it extremely difficult for the Iranian regime to claim that they are battling an aggressive America bent on attacking Iran. In his inaugural address, his New Year greetings, and his Cairo speech, there is a consistent effort to convey respect and friendship for Iranians. That is why Khamenei reacted so angrily to the New Year greeting. It undermined the image of the Great Satan that he routinely paints in his sermons. In his Friday sermon, Khamenei said that the United States, Israel, and especially the United Kingdom were behind the street protests, an accusation that will surely sound ridiculous to most Iranians. The fact that Obama has been cautious in his reaction makes it all the harder for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to wrap themselves in a nationalist flag.

I think a good historic analogy is President George H.W. Bush’s cautious response to the cracks in the Soviet empire in 1989. Then, many neo-conservatives were livid with Bush for not loudly supporting those trying to topple the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. But Bush’s concern was that the situation was fragile. Those regimes could easily crack down on the protestors and the Soviet Union could send in tanks. Handing the communists reasons to react forcefully would help no one, least of all the protesters. Bush’s basic approach was correct and has been vindicated by history.

One of those neoconservatives, columnist Mark Steyn, points out that the Iranian regime will interpret whatever Obama does or does not do however they see fit, noting that they’re already railing against American “interference” and saying we have no right to lecture them about human rights given, for example, the debacle with the Branch Davidians in Waco during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

There’s a very basic lesson here: For great powers, studied neutrality isn’t an option. Even if you’re genuinely neutral. In the early nineties, the attitude of much of the west to the disintegrating Yugoslavia was summed up in the brute dismissal of James Baker that America didn’t have a dog in this fight. Fair enough. But over in the Balkans junkyard the various mangy old pooches saw it rather differently. And so did the Muslim world, which regarded British and European “neutrality” as a form of complicity in mass murder.

And, of course, the United States, along with our NATO allies, ultimately decided we had no choice but to intervene, first in Bosnia and later in Kosovo.

Like Zakaria, NYT op-ed columnist Roger Cohen thinks the situation permanently changed, observing that Khameini has “lost his aura.”

Khamenei has taken a radical risk. He has factionalized himself, so losing the arbiter’s lofty garb, by aligning himself with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against both Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition leader, and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a founding father of the revolution.

He has taunted millions of Iranians by praising their unprecedented participation in an election many now view as a ballot-box putsch. He has ridiculed the notion that an official inquiry into the vote might yield a different result. He has tried pathos and he has tried pounding his lectern. In short, he has lost his aura.

The taboo-breaking response was unequivocal. It’s funny how people’s obsessions come back to bite them. I’ve been hearing about Khamenei’s fear of “velvet revolutions” for months now. There was nothing velvet about Saturday’s clashes. In fact, the initial quest to have Moussavi’s votes properly counted and Ahmadinejad unseated has shifted to a broader confrontation with the regime itself.

Tufts University professor Daniel Drezner ss

For now, however, Obama is keeping his powder dry.  Yesterday, he issued his strongest statement yet:

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reports that “U.S. officials say Obama is intent on calibrating his comments to the mood of the hour. They say he is seeking to avoid having the demonstrators accused of being American stooges and is trying to preserve the possibility of negotiating directly with the Iranian government over its nuclear program, links to terrorism, Afghanistan and other issues.”  He adds that, “Despite increasingly intense Republican criticism, and the passage of resolutions in the House and Senate on Friday that were tougher than the president’s words, U.S. officials say they will stick to their current course.”

Is there a point at which waiting will become intolerable?  Perhaps.

They say there is not much the United States can do to influence the situation — except make it worse for the opposition — but they have begun planning for the administration’s response if the crackdown turns very violent.

“We have to watch every day to see what is happening, even while we anticipate several different possibilities and what to do in those circumstances,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Within the administration, officials say, Obama’s cautious stance has the support of key senior officials, with disagreements centered mostly on quibbles over a word choice.

It’s a frustrating balancing act that will please no one.  It’s not at all clear, however, that there are better options at this point.

Photo: Reuters Pictures.

Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has raised the stakes in the ongoing confrontation between his government and those demonstrating against the results of last week’s election:

TEHRAN — In his first public response to days of protests, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly warned opponents Friday to stay off the streets and denied opposition claims that last week’s disputed election was rigged, praising the ballot as an “epic moment that became a historic moment.”

In a somber and lengthy sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran, he called directly for an end to the protests by hundreds of thousands of Iranians demanding a new election.

“Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “This is challenging democracy after the elections.” He said opposition leaders would be “held responsible for chaos” if they did not end the protests.

His remarks seemed to deepen the confrontation between Iran’s rulers and supporters of the main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, who have accused the authorities of rigging the vote.

Ayatollah Khamenei urged dissenters to pursue their complaints about the June 12 election only through legal channels, insisting that the turnout — officially put at 85 percent — showed the ballot to be a reflection of the national will.

Speaking in front of an audience of thousands that included President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he endorsed the president’s policies and insisted that the margin of victory — 11 million votes — accorded to Mr. Ahmadinejad in the official tally was so big that it could not have been falsified. “How can 11 million votes be replaced or changed?” he said.

He went on: “The Islamic republic state would not cheat and would not betray the vote of the people.”

That certainly looks to me as though it’s setting the stage for an increasingly violent response to the demonstrators on the part of the Iranian authorities.

He also singled out the United States and the United Kingdom for criticism, blaming the two countries for inciting Iranians against their government.

Now it may simply be a case of who swerves first. The demonstrators may give up; the government may give up; some formula may be found for bringing Mousavi back into the fold; or the government forces may forcefully end the demonstrations.

I’m going to write up a longish piece trying to make sense of the Iranian elections for New Atlanticist later today.  Since comparisons to happenings in America seem to be the blogospheric rage de jour, however, I will just note that I have received the news that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered the Guardian Council to “look into charges by pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has said he is the rightful winner of Friday’s presidential election” almost identically to O.J. Simpson’s announcement upon acquital that he would begin a search for “the real killer.”

Photo: Getty Images

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his gang of mullahs are said to be “seriously considering” the latest EU 5+1 proposals on resolving the international standoff on the Iranian nuclear program and are telling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to pipe down.

Warren Strobel:

Iran’s senior diplomat said Tuesday that Tehran was seriously considering a new offer from six world powers to resolve the dispute over its nuclear program, and he praised the package as “constructive.” The unusually positive remarks by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to a small group of reporters raised hope that a negotiated solution can be found to defuse the crisis.

[...]

During a 90-minute luncheon at Iran’s United Nations mission, Mottaki dismissed the growing speculation that Israel or the United States will strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities during President Bush’s last six months in office. He described news reports to that effect as part of a long-running campaign of “psychological warfare.” The chance that Israel will attack Iran “is almost nil,” Mottaki said. As for a U.S. strike, he said there was little public support in this country for a new conflict. “The consequences of such an attack cannot be predicted,” he said.

Mottaki is a much keener observer of American politics than most Western observers, it would seem.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, conveyed the offer to Tehran two weeks ago. It essentially repackages a two-year-old proposal by Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States to give Iran political, economic and security rewards if it “verifiably suspends its enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.”

Presumably, the passage of two years has made it plain that no better offer would be forthcoming. Mottaki’s colleague, Ali Akbar Velayati, who serves as the top foreign policy advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offered some amusingly twisted logic as a face-saving explanation:

“Americans wanted Iran not to accept Solana,” Velayati told the hard-line daily newspaper Jomhuri Islami. “Therefore our interests imply that we should embrace Solana.”

Whatever works, I guess. This, though, is what got everyone’s attention:

In a sign of apparent high-level debate in Iran, a top aide to the country’s supreme religious leader made a veiled swipe Tuesday at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who’s used belligerent rhetoric to defend Iran’s nuclear work. “Officials … should avoid illogical and provocative sloganeering,” Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in published remarks, Reuters reported. His remarks seemed targeted at Ahmadinejad, although he didn’t mention the president by name.

While Ahmadinejad is the public face of the Iranian government, he’s by no means its most important player, despite the obsession with him by the media and some American politicians. As has been the case since the 1979 revolution, the clerics run the show with the Supreme Leader as the first among equals.

This, via Laura Rosen, strikes me as a fair read:

“What Velayati is presenting is a softening up of Iranian opinion as to why Iran might accept some sort of suspension without him going into that,” Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, interprets Velayati’s remarks. “And then Velayati goes on to say that under the current circumstances, Iran can do this because of the fact that the international community has recognized Iran’s right to enrich. So in effect, Velayati is saying, Iran can declare victory and compromise, and that if it doesn’t do this, there will be a stronger case for war against Iran and a continuation of economic sanctions, which it’s very clear are hurting Iran’s economy.”

Of course, as Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Iranian atomic energy organization, reminds us “as in everything in Iran, things could change tomorrow.”

Photo credit: Atta Kenare / AFP / Getty via TIME

Update (Dave Schuler)

I believe Iranian acceptance of this offer would be a benign development for all sorts of reasons of proverbial prudence including “jar-jar is better than war-war” and “half a loaf is better than none”. The offer should have a sell-by date or I see no reason that they’ll not deliberate it forever.

Unfortunately, it’s not nearly enough. The Iranian regime really needs to be more forthcoming about their past and present nuclear development activities for us to have any confidence that whatever nuclear development activity they cease is the nuclear development activity they have. Otherwise we’ll just be subsidizing their R&D.

The greatest danger I see in it is that European countries, blinded by a fog of Euro signs, will see Iranian acceptance of this baby stuff as big enough to take the pressure off Iran. 43% of Iranian imports are from the EU. That dwarfs China, the next largest vendor, by a considerable amount.

However, Iran’s import partners who are probably most able to influence the regime may well also be those necks are most on the line in the face of rising Iranian power in the region, Oman and Saudi Arabia (13th and 17th on the list, respectively). I don’t have detailed stats on the exports of these countries to Iran but I suspect their exports are mostly gasoline. Most of what Iran uses it does not refine itself.

Several days after the story of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Columbia University visit inflamed the blogosphere, professional outrage monger David Horowitz has weighed in. Robert Stacy McCain has the story on the front page of today’s Washington Times.

Columbia University’s invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at the Ivy League school’s New York City campus tomorrow is a “disgrace,” says conservative author David Horowitz, a Columbia alumnus. “Why are they inviting the Persian Hitler to Columbia?” Mr. Horowitz said in a telephone interview with The Washington Times. “It’s a disgrace. … What Columbia is doing is giving moral support to genocide, and as an alumni, I am deeply ashamed.”

[...]

University President Lee Bollinger has said the Ahmadinejad invitation is in keeping with “Columbia’s long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate.”

Naming a list of current and former Bush administration officials, Mr. Horowitz said, “Just ask yourself … do you think any of those people would be invited to Columbia by the president of the university under the pretext of a ‘robust debate?’ ”

Mr. Horowitz, the author of more than 20 books, said he’s never been invited to lecture at Columbia, “certainly not by Lee Bollinger.” Currently promoting the paperback edition of his book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America,” Mr. Horowitz said: “There are nine professors from Columbia in my book — that should tell you something. No other university has more than about three.”

Columbia’s invitation to Mr. Ahmadinejad is an example of the current climate at America’s universities, he said. “It shows that these people do not appreciate that we’re in a war,” said Mr. Horowitz, who has promoted legislation and organized a campus group, Students for Academic Freedom, to “end political abuse” at universities. “The curriculum today teaches students to be sympathetic to our enemies.”

The very idea that academics, qua academics, can be “dangerous” is baffling; it does, however, put Horowitz’ views on Ahmadinejad into proper perspective. A February 2006 excerpt at his FrontPage site gives a good taste of his argument. Here’s a sampling:

Not all of the professors depicted in this volume hold views as extreme as Ward Churchill’s, but a disturbing number do. All of them appear to believe that an institution of higher learning is an extension of the political arena, and that scholarly standards can be sacrificed for political ends; others are frank apologists for terrorist agendas, and still others are classroom bigots. The dangers such individuals pose to the academic enterprise extend far beyond their own classrooms. The damage a faculty minority can inflict on an entire academic institution, even in the absence of a scandalous figure like Ward Churchill, was recently demonstrated at Harvard, when President Lawrence Summers was censured – the first such censure in the history of the modern research university in America — because Summers had had the temerity to suggest in a faculty setting an idea that was politically incorrect.

One of the professors profiled in this text, Columbia University’s Todd Gitlin, explained the achievements of faculty radicals in an essay that appeared in 2004. After the Sixties, Gitlin wrote, “all that was left to the Left was to unearth righteous traditions and cultivate them in universities. The much-mocked ‘political correctness’ of the next academic generations was a consolation prize. We lost – we squandered the politics – but won the textbooks.”

Because activists ensconced in programmatic fields like Black Studies and Women’s Studies also teach in traditional departments like History and English ,and influence them as well, the statements by Rorty and Gitlin may actually understate the ways in which a radical left has colonized a significant part of the university system and transformed it to serve its political ends. In September 2005, the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting, for example, featured a panel devoted to the question, “Is It Time To Call It Fascism?” meaning the Bush Administration. Given the vibrant reality of American democracy in the year 2005, this was obviously a political rather than a scholarly agenda.

Only at the margins and taken to an extreme is this sort of thing “dangerous.”

Churchill was, until fired for reasons unrelated to his rantings, an underqualified crank teaching in a bogus “discipline” whose very existence is coalesced around a political agenda. Black Studies and Women’s Studies are, with rare exceptions, ideology masquerading as scholarship. The topics they study are often quite important; my strong preference, however, would be for it to be done within the context of more rigid methodologies within departments of history, sociology, political science, or what have you.

Still, these people aren’t dangerous. Most of us reading and writing blogs are products of the university system and were exposed to these ideas along the way. Most of us rejected them as silly even as 18- and 19-year-olds.

Presumably, the answer to “Is It Time To Call It Fascism?” is No. Is a discussion of presidential power and the limitations on civil liberties in the name of national security a worthwhile endeavor for political scientists? Absolutely.

Todd Gitlin couldn’t be much further from me ideologically. Still, when I taught a Politics of Communications class a dozen years ago, I selected one of his books to use as one of the course texts. He’s a leading scholar in the field and he argues his anti-Establishment perspective very well. I don’t think many of the students came away converted to his way of thinking. They were, however, forced to grapple with some ideas that were otherwise foreign to them and to thus re-examine their own. That’s the essence of a university education.

Unlike Churchill, Gitlin, and the other 108 scholars mentioned in the book, Ahmadinejad is a very dangerous man. He expresses some genuinely evil ideas and has the wherewithal to carry some of them out. The idea of him possessing nuclear weapons is frightening.

But . . . the Persian Hitler?

He is, according to prominent human rights groups, a bad guy.

According to Amnesty International, dissidents who oppose the government non-violently face harassment, torture and execution and the election of Ahmadinejad signaled the defeat of “pro-reform” supporters. According to Human Rights Watch, “[r]espect for basic human rights in Iran, especially freedom of expression and assembly, deteriorated in 2006. The government routinely tortures and mistreats detained dissidents, including through prolonged solitary confinement.”

Human Rights Watch described the source of human rights violations in contemporary Iran as coming from on the one hand the Judiciary, accountable to Ali Khamenei, and on the other to members directly appointed by Ahmadinejad. Again according to Human Rights Watch, “[s]ince President Ahmadinejad came to power, treatment of detainees has worsened in Evin prison as well as in detention centers operated clandestinely by the Judiciary, the Ministry of Information, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

Tolerance of public protest varies under Ahmadinejad. Human Rights Watch writes that “[t]he Ahmadinejad government, in a pronounced shift from the policy under former president Mohammed Khatami, has shown no tolerance for peaceful protests and gatherings.”

In January 2006 security forces attacked striking bus drivers in Tehran and detained hundreds. The government refused to recognize the drivers’ independent union or engage in collective bargaining with them. In February government forces attacked a peaceful gathering of Sufi devotees in front of their religious building in Qum to prevent its destruction by the authorities, using tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. In March police and plainclothes agents charged a peaceful assembly of women’s rights activists in Tehran and beat hundreds of women and men who had gathered to commemorate International Women’s Day. In June as women’s rights defenders assembled again in Tehran, security forces beat them with batons, sprayed them with pepper gas, marked the demonstrators with sprayed dye, and took 70 people into custody.

Horrible stuff, surely placing him in the running for Most Despicable Dictator.

On the other hand, Hitler is several rungs up the ladder from him in the standings for Most Despicable Dictator of All Time. Ahmadinejad has not, for example, rounded up and systematically murdered millions of people or launched a world war. Were I Jewish, I’d prefer my foreign leaders calling me names and denying that the Holocaust took place to, say, actually conducting a Holocaust.

Further, as I noted last week, Bollinger has not invited Ahmadinejad to a forum presenting him as a hero. He’s insisted that half the time be alloted to questions and answers, including some rather pointed questions of his own about Ahmadinejad’s policies and outrageous statements.

Do I think Bollinger would love to have Karl Rove or Alberto Gonzales or John Ashcroft or Dick Cheney in for such a forum? Absolutely. He’d do it tomorrow, I’d bet. My guess, however, is that none of them would actually submit themselves to the process.

Iran has stepped up its rhetoric in its ongoing clash with the international community over its nuclear program.

Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Wednesday the country will pursue nuclear activities outside international regulations if the U.N. Security Council insists it stop uranium enrichment. “Until today, what we have done has been in accordance with international regulations,” Khamenei said. “But if they take illegal actions, we too can take illegal actions and will do so.”

Iran’s program is in violation of any number of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and U.N. Security Council resolutions, not to mention the Non-Proliferation Treaty, thus threats to “pursue nuclear activities outside international regulations” or “take illegal actions” are laughable.

These, much less so:

Iran’s top leader also issued a stark warning to the United States, saying Iran will “use all its capacities to strike” its enemies if his country is attacked. “If they want to treat us with threats and enforcement of coercion and violence, undoubtedly they must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack,” Khamenei told the nation in an address marking the first day of Nowruz, or the Persian New Year.

There’s not much doubt about that.

UPDATE: Ray Takeyh makes an interesting argument in the current Foreign Affairs. His thesis:

If it hopes to tame Iran, the United States must rethink its strategy from the ground up. The Islamic Republic is not going away anytime soon, and its growing regional influence cannot be limited. Washington must eschew superficially appealing military options, the prospect of conditional talks, and its policy of containing Iran in favor of a new policy of détente. In particular, it should offer pragmatists in Tehran a chance to resume diplomatic and economic relations. Thus armed with the prospect of a new relationship with the United States, the pragmatists would be in a position to sideline the radicals in Tehran and try to tip the balance of power in their own favor. The sooner Washington recognizes these truths and finally normalizes relations with its most enduring Middle Eastern foe, the better.

That’s likely the least bad option.

While most experts have said it would be months, if not years, before Iran could build a nuclear weapon, the State Department thinks it could be 16 days away:

Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow. “Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days.”

Presumably, that estimate is on the low end of the range and it would take some time to weaponize the material. Still, this certainly ratchets up the pressure and the timeline in crafting a suitable response.

Update: Josh Marshall correlates “16 days” to the infamous “16 words” of Iraq fame (which were actually perfectly true, BTW).

Now, I’m pretty new to this issue. But even I can spot that Stephen Rademaker works for Robert Joseph. And that’s the same Bob Joseph who was charged with muscling the CIA into letting President Bush use the Niger bamboozle in the 2003 State of the Union address.

Juan Cole offers this:

The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80% enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.

The source of the 50,000 centrifuge figure is Iran, not the US. They are likely exaggerating, perhaps by a lot. I would prefer to err on the side of believing people who tell me they are reaching the nuclear threshold, however, especially when they are are sworn enemies. The ten year figure is even less plausible than the sixteen days announcement; it’s much higher than most estimates I have seen. And Cole’s trust in the mullahs’ pronouncements of their fidelity to Allah’s teachings exceeds mine rather substantially.

What is really going on here is a ratcheting war of rhetoric. The Iranian hard liners are down to a popularity rating in Iran of about 15%. They are using their challenge to the Bush administration over their perfectly legal civilian nuclear energy research program as a way of enhancing their nationalist credentials in Iran.

The first part of this, at least, is probably right. Iran’s nuclear ambitions and defiance of the West is almost certainly for domestic political consumption. The legality of Iran’s program is questioned by everyone but the mullahs and Cole–precisely the same people who claim that the program is about energy rather than weapons.

Likewise, Bush is trying to shore up his base, which is desperately unhappy with the Iraq situation, by rattling sabres at Iran. Bush’s poll numbers are so low, often in the mid-30s, that he must have lost part of his base to produce this result. Iran is a great deus ex machina for Bush. Rally around the flag yet again.

That probably explains why Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, and Angela Merkel are saying much the same thing.

TigerHawk has a post that predates Rademaker’s pronouncement but references Princeton Professor Frank von Hippe on the multiplier effects of centrifuges. Doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations, “3,000 centrifuges running in parallel could enrich enough uranium for one bomb in four months, or three bombs in a year. If Iran can get 3,000 centrifuges on line by the end of 2006 and is otherwise ready to build its first bomb, it could have a nuclear weapon by this time next year.”

Steven Taylor is almost certainly right when he notes, “I have been struck with the fact that it is clear that the Iranian regime is suffering from a significant inferiority complex. Like the little dog that barks more than the big dog, there is a clear need for the Iranians to be heard.” They are almost surely yapping loudly out of fear rather than strength. Still, one hates to be wrong when predicting that those who say they are trying to wipe you off the map are bluffing.

The old Type I vs. Type II error problem remains with us. In the case of Iraq’s WMD, we apparently got it wrong, with substantial consequence. Still, getting it wrong in the other direction would have been much, much worse. And, in the Iranian case, we’re talking about nuclear weapons.

A mere three weeks ago, Der Spiegel reported that the United States is seriously considering military action against Iran’s nuclear programs. Reactions trickled in at first but now there is a flood.

David Ignatius contends that the National Security Council principals are seriously weighing their options but that “The goal is not simply to stop the Iranians from making a bomb but to change the character of a regime that under Ahmadinejad has swerved onto a new and dangerous track.” The prefered strategy appears to be to work with allies in something akin to the Containment policy employed against the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.

They are apparently pinning their hopes on a theory:

An intellectual benchmark in the Iran debate was a briefing given to officials last fall by Jack A. Goldstone, a professor at George Mason University who is an expert on revolutions. He argued that Iran wasn’t conforming to the standard model laid out in Crane Brinton’s famous study, “The Anatomy of Revolution,” which argued that initial upheaval is followed by a period of consolidation and eventual stability. Instead, Ahmadinejad illustrated what Goldstone called “the return of the radicals.” Something similar happened 15 to 20 years after the Russian and Chinese revolutions — with Stalin’s purges in the late 1930s and Mao’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, Goldstone explained. He argued that Iran was undergoing a similar recrudescence of radicalism that, as in China and Russia, would inevitably trigger internal conflict.

The gist of Goldstone’s analysis gradually percolated up to Rice, Hadley and others. What has intrigued policymakers is the argument that Ahmadinejad’s extremism will eventually trigger a counterreaction — much as the Cultural Revolution in China led to the pragmatism of Deng Xiaoping. Officials see signs that some Iranian officials — certainly former president Hashemi Rafsanjani and perhaps also the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — are worried by Ahmadinejad’s fulminations. Unless the Iranian president moderates his line, wider splits in the regime are almost inevitable, officials believe. They also predict that his extremism will be increasingly unpopular with the Iranian people, who want to be more connected with the rest of the world rather than more isolated.

Fred Kaplan argues that the Russians and Chinese are unlikely to go along with serious Security Council santions and that the utility of a precision strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is at best limited. On the other hand, he believes it “is useful that in this confrontation (unlike the prelude to Iraq), the other major powers and the international bodies at least agree with the basic facts and with the judgment that these facts pose a threat.”

So, what to do? His answer is rather similar to mine: “At this point, I must confess: I don’t know. Neither, it seems, does anybody else.” He invites readers to email him their advice to war_stories@hotmail.com.

Joe Katzman offers this cheery analysis:

I personally believe that we're very likely to see at least 10 million dead in the Middle East within the next two decades, with an upper limit near 100 million. I do not believe pre-emptive action will be taken against Iran. I do, however, believe the extremist mullahs in Iran mean exactly what they say. They are steeped in an ideology that believes suicide/murder to be the holiest and most moral act possible. They have been diligent in laying strategic plans for an offensive Islamic War against Israel, America and the West. Plans backed by 25 years of action, and stated no less clearly than Mein Kampf. I believe that Ahmedinajad's talk of 12th Imam end-times and halos around his head at the UN aren't the ravings of an isolated nut, simply an unusually public (and unusually noticed) expression of beliefs that are close to mainstream within their ruling class. That class of “true believer” imams and revolutionary guard types have been quietly consolidating their control over all sectors of Iranian society over the last few months, and I do not believe anyone in the world today has both the will and the capability to stop them.

He also doesn’t see a collapse from within as all that likely. “Whatever they may think of the mullahs, the Iranian people, and such civil society as they have built in the shadows, have no stomach to seriously oppose them. The mullahs have proven that they are quite willing to kill, with their Basij hitler youth corps and al-Qaeda mercenaries, as many Iranians as necessary. Nonviolent measures like the commendable struggle of decent people like Akbar Ganji or even Ayatollah Montazeri are, in this situation, useless.”

His solution is draconian:

My preferred option for a strike would be to end Iran's oil and gas distribution capabilities, destroy its power infrastructure (critical for nuclear efforts), keep those things down, and hit what targets one can among the weapons programs. Let their economy collapse, let the Europeans and Chinese feel the price of their inaction and encouragement as oil spikes, and promise the Iranians massive reconstruction aid and help if they'll only overthrow the mullahs and renounce their pursuit of nuclear weapons. I'd do this shortly after the 2006 mid-terms, of course – I've read my Machiavelli.

In response to a Hobbesian choice forced on me, I would offer one of my own to the Iranians. Starve in the dark (already closer than one would think for many there, hence prostitution through the roof and other indicators), lose all you have earned (hits the critical Bazaari class), or take the risk and be free and we'll help you. Your call. Meanwhile, lack of power and oil makes it kind of hard to run a weapons program.

Not exactly a strategy aimed at winning hearts and minds. Nor, he acknowledges, is it one the U.S. will muster the political will to implement. Thus, his conclusion is as stark as his opening: “[T]he sword will be drawn. The only questions left as whose, and when, and where.

His colleague, Marc “Armed Liberal” Danziger, is a bit more optimistic. Of course, it would be hard not to be. He prefaces his strategic analysis with a short history lesson:

We’ve made a series of errors that have gotten us to this place; for convenience’s sake, I’ll start with Carter’s ineffective nonresponse to the taking of our embassy in Iran – which in my mind marks the real beginning of the modern Islamist war against the West. Since then, we’ve done nothing to lessen our dependence on imported oil, across three Presidents. Most recently, I’ll lay blame at the feet of President Bush, who missed two clear opportunities: to build the strength of the military over the last four years – which would have required sacrificing domestic programs plus a real effort to spend political capital building support for the war, and to engage the Iranian regime and reach out to the non-insane citizens and politicians that make up a large part of the Iranian polity.

Regardless, we’re here now. The problem with military action, as is usually the case when it is the World’s Sole Remaining Superpower^TM contemplating it, is Then what?

Could we smash the Iranian oil infrastructure, depriving them of cash and Europe and China of fuel? Of course. Child’s play. Could we drop the Iranian electricity grid, possibly slowing the centrifuges to a halt? Sure. Could we destroy the Iranian army, and do a smash-and-grab raid on the suspected weapons development sites? Probably.

Then what?

Do we really think that the moderate, pro-Western forces within Iran would survive – I mean physically, not politically – much less be able to take over the country in the face of one of these acts? Do we think that an Iran which had been bombed or invaded would be more or less pro-Western?

What do you think the impact would be on the balance of the Islamic world? How long before someone else starts buying the tools to make a bomb, or buys a completed bomb?

The answers to those semi-rhetorical questions, by the way, are No, No, Furthering the power of the Bad Guys, ASAP, and ASAP.

So, what then? Essentially, bide our time with diplomatic maneuvering while 1) undergoing radical steps to end our dependency on oil, 2) rebuilding our military capacity, and 3) lining up allies to join a possible fight. But, what of Thomas Holsinger’s dire warnings that our options are diminished inside of a year?

We make it clear that while we are discussing this issue, a nuclear attack on Israel or the US will be met with an immediate potentially-nuclear attack aimed at all the Iranian nuke-producing facilities, their conventional forces (esp. the domestic security forces), their C3, and regime leadership. We need to publicly put the assets in place to enforce that threat. It would be nice if some of those assets has other flags on them, and I’m guessing that given the state of things, they just might.

A hell of a calculated risk, since it presumes at least some degree of rationality on the part of the Mad Mullahs. Then again, they have acted within the general bounds of rationality for a quarter century. Despite public fealty to jihad and martyrdom, none of the guys at the top have shown any real desire to die for Allah, leaving that honor for minions.

Dave Shulman’s unsatisfying answer may well be the right one. When all of your options are bad, you might be better off not picking one of them.

Related posts below the fold.

The Case for Invading Iran
Iran Threatens Oil Prices if Sanctioned on Nukes
Iran Nuclear Diplomacy Fails — Again
U.S. Planning a Military Strike on Iran’s Nukes, II
Iran Rejects Russian Nuke Compromise
U.S. Planning a Military Strike on Iran’s Nukes?
Iranian President Calls for Annihilation of Israel
Hostages: New Iranian President 1979 Captor
Press Coverage of the Iranian Election
President-Elect Wants Modern, Islamic Iran
Iran: Moderate Says Hard-Liners Rigged Election
Iran: Hard-Liners Fear Defeat in Election