Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

OP-ED: "Diplomacy--for Now: Iran's leadership is not suicidal," by George Perkovich, Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2006, p. A10.

I know George going back to 1984, when we both entered Harvard's Russian Research Center as grad students in the fall. I was impressed with him then, both as a thinker and a man, and have tracked his excellent career since.

George's focus has been on south Asia and the Indian Ocean region, specializing in the question of nuclear weapons, MAD, etc. He's an awfully smart guy who's spent the better part of two decades working these issues out in his head, based on very careful research on the subjects and the regions.

In short, when George speaks, I listen.

This is a sharp op-ed.

In it he argues that's "It's now time for the U.S. to quietly rally defense and foreign ministries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia to develop operational plans for containing and deterring a nuclear-armed Iran."

First step? "... to convince Iran's leaders that their sovereignty and security will not be threatened if they desist from supporting or conducting violence outside their borders" (the real and legitimate fear of passing WMD to terror groups, something we could certainly push Iran toward attempting, if we are not careful in the same ways we were careful with the Sovs and the Chinese, for example).

George is right when he points out that Iran's neighbors are "torn between accommodating Tehran's rising power and seeking greater U.S. security cooperation."

The answer is, of course, don't make them choose. That's where we need the CSCE-like entity for the region.

The concluding para is a winner:

Iranian leaders wish to perpetuate their rule, not sacrifice it. Since their illicit nuclear activities were discovered in 2002, they have acted cautiously when the major powers stood resolutely together. When resistance has been weak, Tehran has acted aggressively. It is not too early to build a framework for deterring Tehran from acting outside its borders.

The key to getting great power (as in, Russia and China) buy-in is making clear to them, just like with Tehran, that we're not looking to start the region's fourth war in almost as many years. That's why the CSCE-like entity idea makes so much sense compared to a pointless approach at trying to isolate an Iran that's already too important economically to such New Core pillars as India, China, and Russia. That path is just pissing in the wind of globalization's unfolding.