[Mb-civic] The Iran Charade, Part II - Charles Krauthammer - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

The Iran Charade, Part II

By Charles Krauthammer
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; A17

"It was what made this E.U. Three approach so successful. They [Britain, 
France and Germany] stood together and they had one uniform position."

-- German Chancellor

Angela Merkel, Jan. 13

Makes you want to weep. One day earlier, Britain, France and Germany 
admitted that their two years of talks to stop Iran's nuclear weapons 
program had collapsed. The Iranians had broken the seals on their 
nuclear facilities and were resuming activity in defiance of their 
pledges to the "E.U. Three." This negotiating exercise, designed as an 
alternative to the U.S. approach of imposing sanctions on Iran for its 
violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, had proved entirely futile. 
If anything, the two-year hiatus gave Iran time to harden its nuclear 
facilities against bombardment, acquire new antiaircraft capacities and 
clandestinely advance its program.

With all this, the chancellor of Germany declared the exercise a success 
because the allies stuck together! The last such success was Dunkirk. 
Lots of solidarity there, too.

Most dismaying was that this assessment came from a genuinely good 
friend, the new German chancellor, who, unlike her predecessor, Gerhard 
Schroeder (now a wholly owned Putin flunky working for Russia's 
state-run oil monopoly), actually wants to do something about terrorism 
and nuclear proliferation.

Ah, success. Instead of being years away from the point of no return for 
an Iranian bomb, as we were before we allowed Europe to divert 
anti-proliferation efforts into transparently useless talks, Iran is 
probably just months away. And now, of course, Iran is run by an even 
more radical government, led by a president who fervently believes in 
the imminence of the apocalypse.

Ah, success. Having delayed two years, we now have to deal with a set of 
fanatical Islamists who we know will not be deterred from pursuing 
nuclear weapons by any sanctions. Even if we could get real sanctions. 
Which we will not. The remaining months before Iran goes nuclear are 
about to be frittered away in pursuit of this newest placebo.

First, because Russia and China will threaten to veto any serious 
sanctions. The Chinese in particular have secured in Iran a source of 
oil and gas outside the American sphere to feed their growing economy 
and are quite happy geopolitically to support a rogue power that -- like 
North Korea -- threatens, distracts and diminishes the power of China's 
chief global rival, the United States.

Second, because the Europeans have no appetite for real sanctions 
either. A travel ban on Iranian leaders would be a joke; they don't 
travel anyway. A cutoff of investment and high-tech trade from Europe 
would be a minor irritant to a country of 70 million people with the 
second-largest oil reserves in the world and with oil at $60 a barrel. 
North Korea tolerated 2 million dead from starvation to get its nuclear 
weapons. Iran will tolerate a shortage of flat-screen TVs.

The only sanctions that might conceivably have any effect would be a 
boycott of Iranian oil. No one is even talking about that, because no 
one can bear the thought of the oil shock that would follow, taking 4.2 
million barrels a day off the market, from a total output of about 84 
million barrels.

The threat works in reverse. It is the Iranians who have the world over 
a barrel. On Jan. 15, Iran's economy minister warned that Iran would 
retaliate for any sanctions by cutting its exports to "raise oil prices 
beyond levels the West expects." A full cutoff could bring $100 oil and 
plunge the world into economic crisis.

Which is one of the reasons the Europeans are so mortified by the very 
thought of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The 
problem is not just that they are spread out and hardened, making them 
difficult to find and to damage sufficiently to seriously set back 
Iran's program.

The problem that mortifies the Europeans is what Iran might do after 
such an attack -- not just cut off its oil exports but shut down the 
Strait of Hormuz by firing missiles at tankers or scuttling its vessels 
to make the strait impassable. It would require an international armada 
led by the United States to break such a blockade.

Such consequences -- serious economic disruption and possible naval 
action -- are something a cocooned, aging, post-historic Europe cannot 
even contemplate. Which is why the Europeans have had their heads in the 
sand for two years. And why they will spend the little time remaining -- 
before a group of apocalyptic madmen go nuclear -- putting their heads 
back in the sand. And congratulating themselves on allied solidarity as 
they do so in unison.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011700893.html?nav=hcmodule
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