Imagine if Iran got the bomb

— It’s been said that a diplomat is a gentleman paid to go abroad and lie for his country. Sometimes, however, diplomats slip up and tell the truth. In response to a question at the hopefully named Aspen Ideas Festival this month, Yousef al-Otaiba, ambassador from the United Arab Emirates, said bluntly: “We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.”

If sanctions fail to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons, al-Otaiba added, military force will be the only option left and it should not be ruled out. “A military attack on Iran by whomever would be a disaster,” he said. “But Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a bigger disaster.”

Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, the directorgeneral of Al-Arabiya TV, followed with a newspaper article in which he not only agreed with the ambassador, he declared the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran “the most dangerous threat that is facing our region in a hundred years.” He called upon readers to “imagine what Teheran will do when it has nuclear capabilities!”

Al-Rashed then did a little imagining himself: A nuclear-armed Iran, he said, would soon “dominate . . . and perhaps take over” the Gulf States, the small, wealthy, Arab countries so tantalizingly close to its borders.

Such an Anschluss would not require tanks or troop deployments. As Ambassador al-Otaiba predicted at Aspen, the region’s leaders will “start running for cover toward Iran” once it becomes clear that Washington, having said under both the Bush and Obama administrations that it would be “unacceptable” for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, had accepted that after all.

One can only imagine that other nations will draw the conclusion that being America’s enemy is less risky than being America’s friend. The implications for Iraq-where the U.S. has invested so much blood and treasure-are obvious.

In Pakistan, Islamists will advance, while democrats retreat. That will further complicate matters in Afghanistan where Iranian interventions-e.g., the supplying of roadside bombs to insurgents-will escalate in an effort to frustrate an already challenging American mission.

Turkey’s Islamist government already has moved closer to Iran. Syria has long been an Iranian client. Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy, will be strengthened within Lebanon, within Latin America where it has been making substantial inroads in recent years and, of course, along the border with Israel.

Hamas’ leaders have never entertained the possibility of making peace with Israel. With a nuclear Iran supporting them, they will count themselves as wise for having taken that position. By contrast, the Palestinian Authority will become weaker than ever. A Hamas takeover of the West Bank is possible to envision.

Is there a chance that Iran will give nuclear weapons to anti-American terrorists-or attack the Great Satan directly? That is hard to imagine-almost as hard as it was a few years ago to imagine that a stateless terrorist group based in rural Afghanistan would organize the hijacking of passenger jets and use them as missiles to attack Washington and New York.

The U.S. Congress has passed, and President Barack Obama has signed, legislation that would impose crippling sanctions on Iran. The questions now: Will Obama seriously implement them? And will the Europeans help or hinder? If sanctions fail, there will be no good choices-only bad choices and worse choices. To figure out which is which will require imagination-more than most Western leaders have demonstrated in recent years.

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Editorial, Pages 16 on 07/22/2010

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