Iran fact and logic

Jim Hoagland:

Iran is working to produce a 20-to-50-pound stockpile of enriched uranium that it can use to build atomic weapons within eight to 10 weeks, once it decides to do so -- and has consistently lied to the United Nations about those efforts.

That headline conclusion is one of two basic points that I draw from a series of private meetings on Iran's nuclear ambitions involving diplomats, leading academic experts, senior military officers and experienced analysts from around the globe. The other: The impressive unity that the Bush administration has established in imposing sanctions on Iran is fraying because of war fears and commercial pressures and temptations.

Held over the course of this year in Europe, China and Russia, these unofficial traveling seminars provide a snapshot of international reaction to the unmistakable effort by Iran to develop nuclear weapons and to the threats by President Bush and Vice President Cheney to prevent that from happening.

The conversations, organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), have dealt in mind-numbing detail with Iran's uranium-enrichment program, diplomatic and military options open to the West, and more. In Moscow two weeks ago, I was treated to several hours of explication on precisely how a subclause in a recent Russia-Kazakhstan nuclear power treaty prevents Russia from demanding that Iran forsake enriching uranium on its own territory.

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Bush holds talks on Iran with French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- another war-is-an-option fellow -- in Washington and then with German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- a firm waverer on military strikes -- in Crawford, Tex., this week. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin follows up on his mid-October visit to Iran, where he reportedly told the Iranians that he needed some concession from them, and fast, to enable him to keep protecting them from new U.N. condemnation.

And by mid-November, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will report on whether the Iranians will now admit that they received and then developed P-2 centrifuges and got other nuclear technology from Pakistan, as was reported in this column in 1995 and as the IAEA has charged since 2002.

This is one basic that Bush critics frequently overlook -- in part because it gets lost in the overheated "World War III" rhetoric of the president: The IAEA and the U.N. Security Council have determined that Iran has lied about its nuclear activities and has therefore at least temporarily forfeited its right to enrichment for peaceful purposes. That Iran has gone to great, secretive lengths to create and push forward a bomb-building capability is not a Bush delusion.

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Hoagland believes that it is in China, Russia and Europe's interest to move to stop Iran's production of nuclear weapons, but if that is true, they certainly disguise that interest well with their continued pursuit of commerce with the religious bigots in Tehran.

I think, unfortunately, the Bush administration's threat of war is overstated and that the Iranians know it. At this point the Iranians do not think the threat is as credible as the Democrats do so they are ignoring it and pursuing their objectives. If the Democrats did add credibility to the threat it would have a better chance of success, but they are unlikely to do so which means they will put the problems in the hands of the next administration. Even the usually delusional Frank Rich believes inheriting the Iran problem will be bad politics for the Democrats. One thing is clear from listening to them, they are completely clueless in dealing with it. Don Suber responds to the Rich column.