by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n T<\/span>here\u2019s been ever more talk on Iran. President Bush \u2014 worried about both Americans being killed by Iranian mines in Iraq, and Tehran\u2019s progress toward uranium enrichment \u2014 is ratcheting up the rhetoric.<\/p>\n But so\u00a0mirabile dictu<\/i>\u00a0is French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He suddenly, in the eleventh hour of the crisis, reminds the world that bombing Iran is still very possible (and he doesn\u2019t specify by whom):<\/p>\n An Iran with nuclear arms is, to me, unacceptable, and I am weighing my words\u2026And I underline France’s full determination to support the alliance’s current policy of increasing sanctions, but also to remain open if Iran makes the choice to fulfill its obligations. This policy is the only one that will allow us to escape an alternative, which I consider to be catastrophic. Which alternative? An Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Note especially the French president\u2019s reference to \u201cus\u201d and the logic of his syllogism: Iran can\u2019t and won\u2019t have the bomb; one catastrophic remedy is bombing; therefore someone must increase sanctions or someone will bomb Iran, as the least bad of two awful alternatives. He can say all that \u2014 without the global hatred that George Bush would incur had he said half that.<\/p>\n Mohamed Ahmadinejad is still ranting, but with more a sense of false braggadocio than ever: Iran will inherit the mantel of Middle East hegemony; America is running from Iraq; our policies have already failed in Iraq \u2014 blah, blah, blah.<\/i><\/p>\n S<\/span>o what exactly is the status of the crisis?<\/p>\n Recall the current U.S. policy \u2014 which, I think, so far remains bipartisan except for a few unhinged calls for full diplomatic engagement with this murderous regime:<\/p>\n Show the world that Americans tried the European route with the EU3 (Britain, France, German) negotiations that have so far failed; let the U.N. jawbone (so what?); help Iranian dissidents and democratic reformers; keep trying to stabilize Iran\u2019s reforming neighbors in Afghanistan and Iraq; persuade Russia, China, and India to cooperate in ostracizing Iran; galvanize global financial institutions to isolate the Iranian economy; apprise the world that an Iranian nuclear device is unacceptable \u2014 and hope all that pressure works before the theocrats have enough enriched uranium to get a bomb and, as Persian nationalists, win back public approval inside Iran.<\/p>\n The degree to which Iran has neared completion of bomb-making will determine to what degree all of the above has hurt, helped, or had no effect.<\/p>\n But there are subtle indications that U.S. policy is slowly working, and that a strike now on Iran would be a grave mistake, in every strategic and political sense \u2014 not to mention the humanitarian one of harming a populace that may well soon prove to be the most pro-Western in the region.<\/p>\n It is surreal, after all, that a French president would confess that Iran getting the bomb is \u201cunacceptable.\u201d Sarkozy seems to recognize that a nuclear Iran won\u2019t be happy with bullying neighboring oil producers and carving up Iraq, but will be soon blackmailing Europe on issues from trade to war.<\/p>\n So finally a French leader seems to allow that if the Europeans would just cease all financial relations with Teheran, freeze their assets, and stop sending them everything from sniper rifles to machine tools, then the crippled regime would start to stagger even more. And because France has been the most obstructionist in the past to U.S. efforts in the Middle East, its mere rhetoric is nearly beyond belief.<\/p>\n We have no leverage with China and Russia, of course. Their general foreign policy is reactive, based on the principle that anything that disturbs the United States and diverts its attention is de facto a positive development \u2014 excepting perhaps having another nuclear nut in Asia to go alongside North Korea and Pakistan.<\/p>\n Still, the recent humiliating disclosures about China\u2019s 19th-century \u201cJungle\u201d-type industry, and the growing anger at what Mr. Sarkozy called Russia\u2019s \u201cbrutality,\u201d show that neither country has earned much respect, and that either could pull in its horns a bit concerning Iran, with deft Western diplomacy.<\/p>\n T<\/span>here are other symptoms of progress. The Sadr brigades have purportedly announced a cessation of military operations \u2014 no doubt, because they are losing the sectarian kill-fest. But it may also be because Shiite animosity against them is growing. Perhaps too they are learning that Iran\u2019s interest in Iraq is not always theirs, but simply fomenting violence of any kind that persuades the U.S. military to leave, including arming their enemies, both Sunni and Shiite.<\/p>\n Every Shiite gangster should note that Iran\u2019s envisioned future is not one of coequal mafias, but rather a mere concession in the south that takes orders from the real bosses in the north. The jury is still out on whether it is true that Arab Shiites are Shiites first, and Arabs second or third. But at some point someone will start to figure out that Iran also gave arms and aid to al Qaeda to kill Iraqi Shiites.<\/p>\n No one knows quite what is going on in Iraq. Yet news that the surge is working and that violence is declining is also bad news for Tehran. Its worst nightmare is that Sunni tribes are no longer aping al Qaeda, but helping Americans. That will only turn attention back to Iranian-backed killers. Meanwhile Sunni masters in the region \u2014 arming themselves to the teeth \u2014 are reminding their kindred Iraqi tribesmen that Iran, not America, is the real enemy of the Arab world.<\/p>\n And what is our stance? The United States calmly continues to arrest and \u201cdetain\u201d Iranian agents inside Iraq \u2014 acts, of course, that enrage a kidnapping Iran. Apparently the only thing galling to an Iranian hostage-taker is the very idea that someone else would try such a thing openly and publicly and within the bounds of the rules of war. And by labeling the Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization, the United States is finally institutionalizing what the world already knows: Iran is a criminal state whose government and terrorists are one and the same.<\/p>\n There is also the ever-present, ever-unreliable news out of Iran itself of gas rationing, strikes, and a deteriorating economy. If all that good for us\/bad for them news is true \u2014 with oil prices still sky-high, and sanctions as yet weak and porous \u2014 then it suggests that should financial ostracism be stepped up and become really punitive, and oil recede in price by even a few dollars, the regime would face widespread disobedience.<\/p>\n