IS THERE A SOLUTION TO THE IRAN NUCLEAR PROBLEM?

Nuclear proliferation is a huge problem and the Bush Regime/Neocon foreign policy agenda of unbridled aggression has pushed several countries along the nuclear path. Once the U.S. has a real president again, this is something that will have to be dealt with in a serious manner. Today the Center for American Progress has released a report with some well thought-out suggestions about how to approach the Iran problem. It's very much worth reading. The short version:

"Contain and Engage: A New Strategy for Resolving the Nuclear Crisis with Iran" outlines choreography for breaking the current impasse over substantive negotiations and a strategy for maximizing the ability of the United States to shape Iran's decision-making. It also lays the groundwork for more effectively containing Iran should the country's divided ruling elites still press ahead with a nuclear enrichment program.

Key elements of the strategy include:

* Isolate Iran as long as it continues with its nuclear enrichment efforts;
* Preserve the unity of the UN Security Council and other nations engaged in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program;
* Maintain international and national sanctions, however limited;
* Restrict Iran's access to nuclear and missile technologies;
* Break the diplomatic stalemate over Iran's defiance of the Security Council;
* Begin direct dialogue with Iran;
* Invest in new diplomatic and security infrastructure in the Middle East to both better integrate Iran and assure U.S. allies;
* Engage Iran economically, beginning with the gasoline refinery sector;
* Create a regional nuclear fuel bank consortium under IAEA leadership;
* Prepare smart military options to thwart any offensive Iranian military activities;
* Lay the diplomatic groundwork for a long-term strategy of containing Iran should negotiations break down.

In short, the United States must remind Iran of the potential benefits of cooperation as well as the escalating costs of failure to comply with its nonproliferation obligations. Rather than pursue the faint hope that coercive measures will force Iran's capitulation, our contain-and-engage strategy couples the pressures created by sanctions, diplomatic isolation and investment freezes with practical compromises and realizable security assurances to encourage Iran onto a verifiable, non-nuclear weapons path.
The report includes a technical summary of Iran's program, an analysis of Iran's domestic politics, and an overall threat assessment of a nuclear- or near-nuclear Iran.
It also considers and rejects the four main U.S. policy options on Iran - the status quo policy of squeezing Iran; regime change via democracy promotion; air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities; and a "grand bargain."

Meanwhile, Pakistan already has a nuclear arsenal and is a heartbeat away from rule by Taliban-like fanatics. The Taliban and al-Qaeda operate inside northwest Pakistan with impunity and have established new bases and training camps there. If Bush and the Neocons thought they would be able to divide the Muslim world they have been woefully wrong. Other than a few emirs and kings, almost the entire Muslim world-- and certainly the entire Arab world-- is united... in their unmitigated loathing for the Bush Regime and its Crusader agenda.