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Iran Cannot Be Contained
- Abstract
Quietly within the foreign-policy machinery of the Obama administration—and quite openly in foreign-policy circles outside it—the idea is taking root that a nuclear Iran is probably inevitable and that the United States and its allies must begin to shift their attention from forestalling the outcome to preparing for its aftermath. According to this line of argument, the failure of the administration’s engagement efforts in 2009, followed by the likely failure of any effective sanctions efforts this year, allows for no other option but the long-term containment and deterrence of Iran, along the lines of the West’s policy toward the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. As for the possibility of a U.S. or an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, this is said to be no option at all: at best, say the advocates of containment, such strikes would merely delay the regime’s nuclear programs while giving it an alibi to consolidate its power at home and cause mayhem abroad.
Whatever else might be said of this analysis, it certainly does not lack for influential proponents. “Deterrence worked with madmen like Mao, and with thugs like Stalin, and it will work with the calculating autocrats of Tehran,” writes Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria. In a Foreign Affairs essay titled “After Iran Gets the Bomb,” analysts James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh echo that claim, saying that “even if Washington fails to prevent Iran from going nuclear, it can contain and mitigate the consequences.” Another believer is Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser, who argues that while Iran “may be dangerous, assertive and duplicitous… there is nothing in their history to suggest they are suicidal.”
About the Author
Bret Stephens is a deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and the author of the paper’s Global View, a weekly column.
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