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What Iran seems to be playing for, above all, is time. The longer it can string out the diplomatic process, the further it can proceed down the road toward completing the fuel cycle. It is possible that Iran may even agree to suspend uranium enrichment at some point in the near future, knowing that it has already created new facts on the ground. If the regime were then to change its mind again, says Mark Fitzpatrick, a longtime veteran of the U.S. State Department who is now at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, "it would resume from a new starting point, with uranium conversion up and running and the enrichment process under way."
What Are the U.S.'s Options?
MISTRUST OF IRAN'S INTENTIONS HAS soured the Bush Administration and the Europeans on any deal that would allow Tehran to retain enrichment capacities. U.S. attitudes have hardened in response to Ahmadinejad, and Washington seems to have little interest in any grand bargain that would offer the theocratic regime security guarantees. Thus diplomacy for the moment is centered on the U.N. But even if Iran fails to accept demands that it submit to involuntary inspections, the challenge of reaching consensus on sanctions with real teeth could take months, if it can be achieved at all. The search is already on for selective embargoes that might stand a chance of passage. "It's not going to be oil for food," says a Bush Administration official. "I don't have a clue as to what they are, but fine minds are working on trying to sort out what could get support." Still, Washington's allies know that it's tough to design economic restrictions that will hurt the regime without hurting the Iranian people and realize how effectively Iran's leaders could use blunderbuss penalties to unify the nation behind them.
The bleak outlook for diplomacy fuels speculation that the U.S. and Israel might use military force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. While the military option is "never off the table," officials in both capitals say contingency plans for an air strike "are not under active consideration as an option now." Most experts say only that the U.S. has the air power and long-range fueling capability to carry out the multiple attacks that would be required to inflict serious damage on Iran's nuclear facilities--but they acknowledge that the U.S. military already has its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although some in the Middle East fear that Israel might attempt to repeat its 1981 solo raid on Iraq's incipient nuclear bomb, a senior Israeli intelligence officer says, "We won't act alone. Why should we? It's a global problem."