World must put pressure on defiant Iran

Iran now looms as one of the Bush administration's most difficult foreign policy challenges.

It is critical because Iran seems intent on pursuing, and hiding, a program to develop nuclear weapons. Iran is also a nation vigorously supporting terrorist organizations, some of which may be eager to use such weapons.

While North Korea is similarly intent on pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, its motivations are various, perhaps even mercenary. But Iran seems motivated by Islamist zeal, dramatically enunciated in the past six months by the provocative pronouncements of its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran has skillfully played out negotiations with a coalition of concerned European nations, supported by the United States, seeking to halt the Iranian program. These have come to naught, with Iran restarting its temporarily halted nuclear enrichment program. This provides the materiel that can be used for nuclear weaponry.

With the patience of the Western negotiators virtually exhausted, the next step will be in Vienna next month when the International Atomic Energy Agency will consider referring the Iran problem to the United Nations Security Council. A Security Council resolution branding Iran an international pariah should be sought. It would be marginally better if supported by Security Council permanent members China (a major buyer of Iran's oil and gas) and Russia (which is helping build Iran's ostensibly peaceful nuclear energy program). But the prospect of China and Russia signing on to any serious punitive sanctions against Iran seems remote. Thus we are likely to see a situation sadly reminiscent of the Security Council's record on Iraq — a series of condemnatory resolutions with no effective action.

Besides being a security problem, Iran is fast becoming a political problem for President Bush, with critics Republican (John McCain) and Democratic (Hillary Clinton) demanding a tougher stance on Iran. He will not relish accusations of weakness swirling around him as he ushers the Republican Party into the midterm elections of 2006 or the presidential election of 2008.

The options for the United States seem as follows: