@newspaperarticle {66306,
	title = {Sitting Down at the Nuclear Table with Iran},
	year = {2008},
	month = {Jun 7, 2008},
	publisher = {Boston Globe},
	abstract = {IN A SPEECH this week, Iran{\textquoteright}s supreme leader found himself in rare agreement with President Bush. Echoing Bush{\textquoteright}s judgment that nuclear terrorism is \&quot;the single most serious threat to American national security,\&quot; Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that, \&quot;sooner or later, international terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weapons and bring the security of the world{\textellipsis}to an end.\&quot;Bush has insisted that \&quot;for the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.\&quot; Unfortunately, however, as a result of the failure of the Bush administration{\textquoteright}s strategy toward Iran, today Tehran stands seven years further down its path to nuclear weapons than it did on Jan. 20, 2001. Specifically, when Bush entered office, Iran had no operational uranium enrichment facilities. Today, as last month{\textquoteright}s International Atomic Energy Agency report documents, Iran is operating 3,492 centrifuges in a cascade that has produced 500 pounds of low-enriched uranium. This is one-third of what is required for Iran{\textquoteright}s first nuclear bomb.The Bush administration{\textquoteright}s strategy to prevent Iran{\textquoteright}s mastering technology for enriching uranium and producing nuclear weapons has been characterized as a \&quot;diplomatic slow squeeze.\&quot; The administration has hoped that UN Security Council resolutions isolating Iran, enforced by sanctions, would persuade Tehran to suspend enrichment activity. Ironically, the IAEA chose Memorial Day to inform its member governments that for the third time, Iran has stiffed the demands of the Security Council resolution.In baseball, it{\textquoteright}s three strikes and you{\textquoteright}re out. After the undeniable failure of the third  Security Council resolution imposing sanctions to slow Iran{\textquoteright}s nuclear program, Bush{\textquoteright}s Iran strategists should recognize that they have struck out.Hoping to divert attention from this record, the Bush administration has further confused the issue with exaggerated rhetorical attacks on those who advocate an alternative strategy of direct diplomacy including negotiations. Speaking to the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel{\textquoteright}s creation, Bush accused proponents of negotiations with unfriendly regimes of \&quot;appeasement.\&quot; More diplomatically, but equally pointedly, in addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for another dose of the same medicine the administration has been prescribing, and sought to shift the blame to Iran, asserting that \&quot;The real question is: Why won{\textquoteright}t Tehran talk to us?\&quot;Facts are only obliquely relevant to political debate. But for the record, the charge of appeasement leveled against British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain focused not on his willingness to talk, but on his unwillingness to act. In the run-up to World War II, negotiation was not the issue. The question was whether Britain and France would act when Adolf Hitler violated Germany{\textquoteright}s Versailles Treaty commitments.Winston Churchill criticized the governments for capitulating when Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland, arguing that if they had responded, \&quot;There is no doubt that Hitler would have been compelled by his own General Staff to withdraw.{\textellipsis}They had only to act to win.\&quot; Instead, a confident Hitler went on to absorb Austria, and after Munich, Czechoslovakia.If Bush recognized the fact that his diplomatic squeeze has failed, and asked what he could do in his final eight months to advance US interests in relations with Iran, he would not have to look beyond his own Cabinet.In a 2004 report titled  \&quot;Iran: Now is the Time for a New Approach,\&quot; Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged that \&quot;the United States deal with the current regime rather than wait for it to fall.\&quot; When asked about this recommendation during recent testimony on the Hill, Gates noted that he had been \&quot;in a happier place\&quot; then.But it is clear that Gates remains convinced that direct negotiations are imperative for solving the nuclear standoff. As he told the Academy of American Diplomacy last month, \&quot;We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage{\textellipsis}and then sit down and talk with them.\&quot;Negotiations are never certain to yield results. The alternative, a world of nuclear anarchy, is of great concern to both nations. Having seen the results of seven years of nonengagement, Bush could do his successor{\textemdash}whether Democrat or Republican{\textemdash}a great favor by proposing to negotiate with Iran now.Graham Allison is a Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government and Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.},
	url = {http://www.boston.com},
	author = {Allison, Graham T., Jr.}
}
