Iran is going to get the bomb.  More and more that seems to be the consensus view in Washington.  Despite speeches by both Bush and Obama that state without equivocation that this is “unacceptable,” the pessimistic view based on Iranian actions and the ineffective global reaction is that the outcome is inevitable.  Iran’s own statements only add fuel to the fire.

I was still skeptical, however, until I attended an AEI event last week where John Bolton was a panelist.  Let’s just say I have always considered Bolton to be the canary in this particular coalmine.  When he stops beating the military action drum, I would know it was time to start worrying.  Here’s what he had to say:

Iran is going to get nuclear weapons.  We have lost this race.

I would say that this canary has stopped singing.  When Bolton has given up on stopping Iran from getting the bomb, it’s time to consider what to do the day after they get the bomb.

In an LA Times interview, Mohammed El Baradei, who will soon leave his post as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, calls the U.S. and European strategy on Iran a “failure.” There is no love lost between El Baradei and the Bush Administration, and it does not surprise me to hear him laying out the groundwork for an argument that a nuclear Iran will be the result of U.S. actions.

The case against the U.S. is not helpful, I do think El Baradei is right that our Iran policy has failed.  European negotiations have been unsuccessful.  Worse than that, they have given Iran time and a platform to mount a defense of its behavior.  Sanctions have also not accomplished much.  And they never will unless China, Russia and the EU agree to isolate Iran completely.  Don’t hold your breath on that one.  Finally, there is no good option for a military strike.  Pretty much everyone agrees that there is no way to know if the nuclear program can be wiped out.  Not a lot of folks in the White House, current or future, or on Capitol Hill are going to spend political capital on an attack that may achieve nothing.

Where does that leave us?  According to Iran Watch, Iran will have enough enriched uranium to start the process of making a single bomb by next December and a couple more by the end of 2010.  That doesn’t give us a lot of time.

The Obama Administration needs to work the Iran issue on two parallel tracks.  The first is aggressive engagement to try and prevent the acquisition of nuclear capabilities.  Obama may be able to craft a negotiating stance that leads Iran to back off.  The optimistic view is that there is precedent in the nuclear age for countries walking up to the brink of building a nuclear weapon and being convinced to give up the program.

The second track is to formulate a strategy for dealing with a nuclear Iran.  We need to know exactly how we will react to an Iranian nuclear test before it happens.  We cannot afford to figure it out after the fact.  In coming up with a post-Iranian-nuclear-test position, I think the Obama Administration should avoid the following words: containment and deterrence.  These are fraught with Cold War definitions and decades of entrenched arguments that will not be helpful.

In all of these comments, I am assuming that acquiring nuclear weapons is not due to messianic reasons for Iran.  I know that this requires that the rhetoric of Iran’s leaders be discounted to some extent. But I believe that Iran has a strong interest in self-preservation and that the leaders are not actually willing to destroy themselves in order to destroy Israel or the U.S.  In a way, you have to believe that Iran is not developing the bomb to use it, but instead to have a political lever for obtaining greater geopolitical power.  The moment that we believe that Iran intends to use or transfer the bomb, the military option becomes the only option.

So what do we do?

First of all, I think that the Obama Administration needs to add a new talking point to its standard list of discussion topics with the usual suspects.  Quite simply, we need to ask Russia and China and the EU member countries what it is that they will do the day after Iran tests a nuclear weapon.  We need them to know that we will have an answer to that question and that we will expect them to have an answer.  For Russia in particular, this needs to be phrased in a way that makes it clear that, after years of official Russian denials and equivocation, we will hold them accountable for a nuclear Iran and expect them to take a leadership role in reacting swiftly and harshly when the time comes.  The EU needs to understand that we will expect a united front on sanctions and other punitive actions.  We also need to make it clear that if the Russians step up to the plate, it will be untenable for China to use its veto in the Security Council on any Iran resolutions.

Second, the U.S. must start to develop a presence in Iran.  We must open up diplomatic ties of some sort.  I know that many feel this is rewarding Iran for bad behavior.  I tend to take the opposite view.  Our actions have not delegitimized Iran in the eyes of any other country.  We have merely robbed ourselves of opportunities to understand how the Iranians operate and think.  We cannot deal with a nuclear Iran based on a series of poorly informed assumptions.  To many Iranian leaders, a U.S. presence would be a lot more dangerous than the lack of one.  But more importantly, after a nuclear test, the U.S. must communicate clearly to Iran what our actions would be in the case of use or transfer of a nuclear weapon.  This cannot be done through the media or European allies or oblique statements.  This must be done firmly and directly.

Which brings me to the final aspect of our necessary planning.  We need to have some honest discussions with Israel about what happens after Iran tests.  I hope we are doing this already.  The U.S. must be prepared to provide security guarantees in the Middle East.  We are going to be the only country that can credibly stand between Iran and Israel when tensions run high and face them both down from a nuclear conflict.   We will need to explore confidence building measures with both sides – and eventually Iran and Israel will need to have direct talks to institutionalize them.  We have to realize that the biggest danger might be misunderstandings, miscommunication and/or accidents that lead to a nuclear conflict.  The idea of a direct hotline between Tel Aviv and Tehran is not as crazy as it sounds.

This is just a starter list for issues that must be considered now.  The world will become a more dangerous place the day after Iran declares its nuclear capability.  We must be prepared to deal with it.

Related posts:

1. The United States Got What It Asked For: Oh, the Horror!
2. Time to Islamicize the condemnation of Iran
3. Should We Engage Iran Out of the NPT?
4. Winning Turkey’s Support on Iran
5. Russia: whose strategic partner?