New York Times: A year and a half after President Bush told top aides that he feared he might be forced someday to choose between acquiescing to Irans nuclear ambitions and ordering military action, the struggle to find an effective alternative sanctions with real bite is entering a new phase. The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER
Published: September 27, 2007
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 A year and a half after President Bush told top aides that he feared he might be forced someday to choose between acquiescing to Irans nuclear ambitions and ordering military action, the struggle to find an effective alternative sanctions with real bite is entering a new phase.
The speech at the United Nations on Tuesday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is already being used by American officials in an effort to convince European allies that Irans leadership will respond only to a sharp new wave of economic pressure, far greater than anything it has endured so far. Mr. Ahmadinejad, trying to make the case that no additional sanctions would derail Irans uranium enrichment program, declared that the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed.
Until now, Washington has relied on gradually escalating sanctions, including convincing a growing number of banks that it is risky to lend new funds to Iran for major oil projects. Yet in interviews, American diplomats, White House officials and military officers acknowledge that the strategy has been largely ineffective.
So have veiled threats of military action. While President Bush and his aides insist that all options are on the table, senior officials say there is little enthusiasm in the White House or the Pentagon for military attacks on Irans nuclear facilities, though they acknowledge that such war plans are always being refined.
The officials say the Iranians fully understand that while the United States could destroy Irans major nuclear facilities, it would be far harder to manage the probable response, which could include heightened attacks on American forces in Iraq, possible retaliation on Israel or the destabilization of governments from Lebanon to Pakistan.
Administration officials say that the chances appear slim that the United States can enlist Russia and China behind really tough sanctions against Iran, and that it could take several months for such sanctions to emerge, if they do at all.
But for the first time, administration officials say, the European allies are talking about a far broader cutoff of bank lending and technology to Iran than any tried so far. The lead is being taken by the new government in France, whose president, Nicolas Sarkozy, issued a starker warning to the United Nations this week about a nuclear Iran than did Mr. Bush.
That has created a new initiative between Washington and Paris unlike any since they split over the invasion of Iraq. The effort, said Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, is intended to convince Iranians that the nuclear program is taking us into the ditch, and to make the pressure so great that they finally have to make a strategic choice.
In a meeting on Tuesday with editors and reporters for The New York Times, Mr. Hadley conceded that the United States was still struggling to understand how much pressure it would take to force Iran to make what he called a strategic choice and said that intelligence estimates vary widely about how much time remained before the Iranians could have a weapon.
One senior European official who is taking part in conversations in New York this week to design sanctions that the entire European Union might agree to said it was now a race between how fast they can build centrifuges and we can turn up the pain.
So the discussions now center on cutting off even more lending to the Iranians and for the first time supplies of technology and other goods. But that would require severing, one by one, deep ties between European and Iranian businesses, and necessitate what Mr. Hadley called a consensus for aggressive action, even if that means compromising their commercial interests.
A range of officials acknowledged the difficulty of designing a military strike option effective enough to set the Iranian program back for many years.
While many of the sites have long been known especially the giant underground complex at Natanz, where just shy of 2,000 centrifuges have been installed there is no certainty that military action could destroy the entire system of well-disguised factories and laboratories, some known and some hidden.
And the turmoil certain to follow such an attack may not be worth military action that simply delays nuclear development, officials say.
That probably explains why Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both vowed to pursue the diplomatic track, saying that military action is a last resort. But those comments have not silenced the speculation here, in Europe and in the Middle East that America is planning for an attack.
This constant drumbeat of war is not helpful, and its not useful, said Adm. William J. Fallon, the senior American commander in the region.
In a telephone interview this week as he visited various regional capitals, Admiral Fallon pledged that the United States would maintain our capabilities in that region of the world in an attempt to make sure that if they opt for military activity there, that is not going to be very useful to them.
At the same time, he said, we will pursue avenues that might result in some kind of improvement in Iranian behavior.
I am not talking about a war strategy, but a strategy to demonstrate our resolve, Admiral Fallon said. We have a very, very robust capability in the region, especially in comparison to Iran. That is one of the things that people might want to keep in mind. Our intention is to make sure they understand that, but we are being prudent in our actions and certainly not trying to be provocative.
In recent days others have begun to speak openly about what the United States would face if Iran successfully fielded nuclear weapons or manufactured enough uranium to make clear that it could produce weapons in short order. It is that second possibility in which Iran would stay within the strict rules of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty that worries many intelligence officials.
Gen. John P. Abizaid, who retired this year as senior American commander in the Middle East, said that while the United States must do all it can to prevent Iran from going nuclear, the world could live with a nuclear Iran and could contain it.
I believe that the United States, with our great military power, can contain Iran, that the United States can deliver clear messages to the Iranians that makes it clear to them that while they may develop one or two nuclear weapons, theyll never be able to compete with us in our true military might and power, and they should not underestimate either our resolve or our ability to deal with them in the event of war, General Abizaid said in a speech last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington policy institute
He said the broad rules of deterrence that kept a nuclear peace between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war, and remain in effect with nuclear Russia and China today, would be effective against a nuclear Iran.
I believe nuclear deterrence will work with the Iranians, General Abizaid said.
Inside the administration, senior officials say they have also considered organizing a regional forum to confront Iran, using as a model the six party talks with North Korea, an effort to put pressure on that country from all its neighbors. But in the Middle East, officials say, the idea has hardly gotten off the ground.
As we talk to the regional leaders, we have yet to hear a single good idea for ways to find common ground, or a forum or framework for dealing with Iran, said one senior official involved in Iran policy. The problem, officials say, is that none of Irans neighbors are willing and able to play the decisive role alongside the United States.
