Iran

Here's an interesting article in the Times from yesterday about Iran's nuclear program. The country recently released photos of a nuclear development facility in Nantanz, giving analysts plenty to debate about: why, for example, is the Ahmidinejad regime showing its cards? what do such cards reveal? is uranium being enriched for peaceful purposes (note the "bottom bearing" mentioned in the article).

What America's approach toward Iran will, I hope, be an important issue in this year's presidential campaign. While I certainly don't find myself agreeing with President Bush on all foreign policy matters (e.g., Iraq), particularly when it comes to a devaluation of diplomacy, I also can't help thinking that the an "Obaman" approach might be equally dangerous. Ultimately, a president's foreign policy approach to different countries and different conflicts should be, well, different, even when there's an operative well thought-out policy.

From experience, we know that taking a country at its word, as the US did with North Korea during the Clinton years, can pose certain hazards when the avowed enemy is adept at using deception and diplomacy to achieve its nefarious purposes. Iran, I think, resembles North Korea in this respect, declaring, against all past evidence, that its aims are peaceful. It might not be the wisest thing merely to take the leadership at its word or to engage in toothless diplomacy that might allow them, as it did North Korea, to gain more time in developing nuclear weapons (which, by the way, are likely to be completed by 2010-2015 according to current projections).