How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ahmadinejad?

Reader, do you have a solution to the Iranian nukes dilemma?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006, at 7:04 PM ET

What to do about Iran? The mullahs seem intent on acquiring a nuclear arsenal. Everything they've been doing lately—enriching uranium, spinning centrifuges, really just about anything they could do short of actual bomb production—is legally permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (a serious problem with the NPT these days). The Bush administration is pushing the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions. But Russia and China would likely veto the motion, owing to the former's massive investment in Iranian reactors and the latter's heavy dependence on Iranian oil. The entire industrialized world is leery of economic confrontation for this same reason; Western Europe and Japan get 10 percent to 15 percent of their oil imports from Iran. As for a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, two objections stand out, among several others: It would be very difficult (the facilities are scattered, some buried deep underground), and it would be widely regarded as premature at best (even the most pessimistic intelligence estimates don't foresee an Iranian bomb for at least a few years).