If Obama continues on his current path, he could well have a conflict. For this reason alone, he should change course
There are two possible outcomes of the barrage of words being launched against Iran: a war that starts inadvertently (what, one wonders, would be the reaction today if a British naval patrol in the Gulf were captured by the Iranians, as happened four years ago?); or a war that starts after an attack by Israel. A negotiated climbdown by both sides is the least likely option, although the venue for one still exists. The next round of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN security council plus Germany will be held in Istanbul. Failing any breakthrough there, western policy is caught in a cleft stick.
The British foreign secretary, William Hague, warned on successive days that the Iranian nuclear programme could trigger a Middle East cold warand that Israeli military action to forestall it would be unwise. And yet, if you do not believe that sanctions will deter Tehran from its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons (and this newspaper talked to senior US officials who do not), one judgment inexorably leads to the other. So competing voices in the US administration are both upping the ante and scurrying every month to Jerusalem to restrain Ehud Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu from doing what they have long promised to do. The latest visitor to Israel is Tom Donilon, Barack Obama's national security adviser. Long before coming to power, Netanyahu said that Israel's date with destiny lay with Iran, not the Palestinians. And there is no reason to disbelieve his intention to attack Iran.
One does not have to doubt the sincerity of Obama's extended hand to Iran at the start of his presidency, or the two personal letters he wrote to its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to worry about the direction in which his administration's policies are leading him now. Obama is no George W Bush. This president has not pulled out of Iraq, and started the drawdown in Afghanistan, only to start a conflict with a country with the power to mess up both Iraq and Afghanistan if attacked. But if he continues on this path, he could well have a conflict. For this reason alone, he should change course. More
