■"Will Iran Be Next: Soldiers, spies, and diplomats conduct a classic Pentagon war game—with sobering results," by James Fallows, Atlantic Monthly, December 2004, p. 99.
■"What the Mullahs Learned From The Neighbors: To deal with Iran, learn from the mistakes in Iraq," by Kenneth M. Pollack, New York Times, 9 November 2004, p. A23.
■"Iran, India Reach Accord to Work On Gas Deposits," by John Larkin, Wall Street Journal, 3 November 2004, p. A12.
■"Iran Claims Draft Accord With Europe On Uranium," by Elaine Sciolino, New York Times, 9 November 2004, p. A6.
All the smart look-aheads on Iran suggest that we've effectively created a pathway dependency: by doing Afghanistan on its right and Iraq on its left we basically okayed Iran's rush for the bomb, whether we want to own up to that or not.
The question now is not how we stop Iran's bomb, but how we make it work for us.
The separate peace's are already being concluded between Iran and Europe, Iran and India, and Iran and China. By giving off the impression that the Iraq takedown was a zero-sum game launched by the U.S for the U.S., we effectively set in motion the hedging strategies by the rest of the Core's main pillars vis-à-vis Iran. No one to blame but ourselves on that one, so no finger pointing.
But no crying over this spilt milk either. Iran will get the bomb. What we need to ask is: What will Iran having the bomb get us?
Use your imagination. I will, when I write my next article for Esquire tomorrow morning.
It'll be in the February issue, hitting stands just before the inauguration.
My guess is that the title will start with "Mr, President, Here's How to . . ."
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