Talking to Iran: aggressive folly

The News Virginian
Published: July 9, 2008

In the lingering glow of test missile launches in Iran, presumptuous Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama proposes anew a change in American foreign policy which can hardly be believed. In response to the apparent mounting threat posed by a longtime enemy of the U.S., Obama pledges to respond with aggression, of the diplomatic sort.
This approach, Obama explained on the “Today” show, would entail “opening up channels of communication so that we avoid provocation but we give strong incentives for the Iranians to change their behavior.” Oh. Had only aggressive diplomats tried as much in the lazy days of summer seven years ago, America might have been spared all this war on terror business.
Obama’s thinking on the subject of Iran is lucid in the fashion of talking nice to a rattlesnake poised to strike. Women may swoon when Obama speaks, but vipers and state sponsors of terrorism are more apt to respond with a hiss and sinking of fangs into flesh.
Republican John McCain, the Arizona senator and former prisoner of war, understands this better than many and, certainly, better than Obama. Hence an approach founded on logic rather than fuzz and fancy: McCain emphasizes the necessity of building advanced radar facilities in the Czech Republic and interceptor missile sites in Poland. Russia, quietly reassembling from rubble a dangerous empire, opposes the U.S. missile defense shield. The U.S. nonetheless is, as it should, pressing on.
Obama, meanwhile, wants to talk while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad daydreams about nuclear weapons.
What McCain does not suggest is a marshaling of troops for another Middle Eastern military foray. The volume of neoconservative rumbling about intervention there has lurched toward a crescendo as Tehran has defied calls to refrain from what McCain refers to as “nuclear activities.” This ignores the fact that Iran in a military sense has the serpent’s temperament but a butterfly’s sting.
Analysts say Iran’s missiles feature advanced technology but not the capacity to hit long-range targets, such as U.S. or Israeli bases. In other words, Iranian missiles lack even the reach of Iraq’s Scud missiles, used to limited effect primarily to attack Israel during the Gulf War. Iran’s recent test salvo, as a result, should be considered discomforting but hardly cause for trembling.
The same applies to Iran’s nuclear dabbling, which leaders in the world’s fourth largest oil producer insist is intended as an energy alternative. Whether one swallows that line, the facts belie Iranian military machismo. It took Tehran 30 years to build its new Khomeini Airport. Other projects remain unfinished after more than a decade of work. The atom in hands like these might be most frightful to the people of Iran rather than the remainder of the world.
Still, Iran’s association with terrorism and its unequivocal enmity toward the West should not be dismissed. McCain’s view is a sensible one. He neither calls for open communication with thugs nor overstating their capabilities. Obama’s approach demonstrates a naïvete perhaps as dangerous as our enemies.