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The major problem facing U.S. foreign policy is the recurring theme of blatant hypocrisy. The fundamental assumptions of either unilaterally, bilaterally or multilaterally negotiating with the Iranians to further the goal of ceasing Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions is an argument that the U.S. can't win. It's the classic "do as I say, not as I do" argument. The U.S., through programs like "divine strafe," are testing battlefield nuclear weapons with the implicit use to be on sites like underground Iranian Uranium enrichment facilities. It is initiatives like this, coupled with undying support for Israel and U.S. unilateralism and intervention in the past that is part of the impetus for states like Iran seeking nuclear weapons. However, the truth of the matter is that Iran is a minimum of 10 years away from processing enough fuel to have the basics required for nuclear weapon. The point is, THERE IS NO IMMINENT CRISIS.

For the sake of intellectual folly let's argue this question of unilateralism, bilateralism or multilateralism under the assumption that our ignorant political representatives, with the support of a full-frontal assault by the mediocre and ill-informed minds of the press (and often academia,) in this case Krauthammer and Ignatius, will provide us all with a sudden urgency on the matter of Iran, especially now that it looks like the American public is growing weary over the last thing that they were manipulated into believing they should fear.

The real question then becomes what does the U.S. have as a bargaining chip with Iran? The threat of military force? I don't think so.

Here's why:

Limited air strikes that target Iranian infrastructure, nuclear or otherwise, would provoke a response from Iran and an Iranian invasion of Iraq would most likely be the outcome. That would directly imperil the lives of 135,000 U.S. soldiers based in Iraq, not to mention countless civilians. The U.S. military leadership would certainly bring in reinforcements from the surrounding areas like Afghanistan, who can't afford to be stressed further. Ships in the gulf would provide air and missile cover, nations around the world would choose sides and things would get very hairy, very quickly.

The true strength of the U.S. military is not what our political leaders have convinced the population it is. Despite budgets that are basically more the entire world put together, our forces are overstretched and as recent polls show, demoralized, to the point of wanting extraction from the so-called "war on terror" in Iraq. The general public, despite not having to sacrifice anything in the invasion of Iraq has had its will seriously degraded and are solidly against a draft, which would be the only logical solution to a full-scale invasion of Iran. In the long term, Americans would only support a military action against Iran if it meant that they would not have to change any aspect of their lifestyle, including becoming a part of our democracy through direct military sacrifice, having to pay increased taxes for the war machine and the inevitable rise in not only gasoline prices but also consumer goods.

Another problem with using military action to resolve conflicts like this is that it only seems to limitedly work on countries that are weak and powerless; it especially helps when there's less than 25 million people, half the population is under the age of 15 and there has been full scale destruction of armaments in the preceding years, suffocating sanctions and claustrophobic no-fly zones repressing the country in every facet of its existence. The point is Iran ain't Iraq. A military conflict with Iran would be exponentially more difficult then the relatively minor skirmish presently taking place in Iraq.

Even if the U.S. used a force 10 times the size that which invaded Iraq the 2nd time, the military wouldn't just roll over Iranian forces. An occupation would be longer and more drawn out than what is taking place in Iraq and an air war alone would certainly bring Israel into the mix. Israeli involvement would bring other Arab and Muslim states into what could then become a major war. These likely realities tangled with the U.S. military and the public's inability to see that "will" wins wars and not technology and the Iranians would clearly have an advantage. Iranians surely realize that to fight a war like this against U.S. forces conventionally would be suicide and inevitably, if they haven't already, would reach the conclusion that a "terrorist" type insurgency would ensure that a U.S. occupation would not persist. A drawn out occupation would have the not-so-incidental affect of radicalizing the citizenry of other Arab and Muslim states in a more extreme fashion then the occupation of Iraq already has and could provoke at a minimum increased regional instability, a likely full-scale regional insurgency and/or a major world war.

The truth is that while these assumptions could be completely wrong and the U.S. could accomplish its military goals quickly and without provoking regional destabilization it can't ensure that Iran wouldn't acquire nuclear weapons. The crux of this entire argument is the flawed assumption that if Iran possessed a weapon they would use it. The only country in the world that has ever had the dubious distinction of being able to use nuclear weapons without equitable retribution was the U.S. in 1945. The likely possible targets of hypothetical Iranian nuclear attack either possess their own nuclear weaponry, like Israel, or have the pledged support of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Any pre-emptive attack by the Iranians would be, if you'll allow the use of an analogous quote from Condoleeza Rice in referring to North Korea and Iraq in JANUARY 2000,

"These regimes are living on borrowed time, so there need be no sense of panic about them. Rather, the first line of defense should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence --if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring NATIONAL OBLITERATION."

The Iranians know this, we know it and the world knows it. The only logical conclusion we can be left with, barring a radical departure from previous U.S. foreign policy, namely the end of hypocrisy, unilateralism and failed violent intervention, is that our country has to accept the fact that countries like Iran are going to acquire weapons we don't want them to have and the resulting costs from attempting to stop this inevitability would far outweigh any military successes. The U.S. cannot stop war by creating it, can't stop violence by perpetuating it and can't stop violent preemption by being violently preemptive.

Yet again it seems that the only characteristics required to solve this problem is patience and diplomacy but only time will tell if the U.S. will have the foresight and wisdom to possess them.

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