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Stopping an Iranian Bomb
[Washington Post] John P. Hannah - Can the president's strategy of diplomatic engagement persuade Iran to cease its efforts to develop nuclear weapons? Unfortunately, successful denuclearization of hostile states is most likely to occur as a result of regime change, coercive diplomacy or military action, not U.S. pledges of mutual respect. In December 2003, Libya's Moammar Gaddafi accepted an American offer of rapprochement in exchange for giving up his nuclear weapons infrastructure - after U.S. troops had provided him with the compelling example of deposing and capturing Saddam Hussein. In 1981, Israeli jets destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor just before it began producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, stopping Hussein's own nuclear ambitions. Military force also proved necessary against Syria's rogue nuclear activities in September 2007. America's greatest success in setting back Tehran's nuclear program came when Iran halted its nuclear weapons design work in 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Hussein's regime. The writer, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, served as national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2005 to 2009.