WASHINGTON -- The Obama Administration finds itself low on good options for avoiding conflict with Iran, a bleak new report from a major international conflict-prevention group says.
In the report released Thursday, the International Crisis Group argues that while a war with Iran could have "devastating consequences," the main alternative currently being pursued -- crippling sanctions -- is itself unlikely to succeed, and may well end up expediting military conflict.
"In some ways sanctions have been the tail wagging the dog because all of the politics are based on the notion that sanctions are going to get Iran to change its course," said Robert Malley, the Middle East and North Africa program director for Crisis Group. "If that's our logic -- and there's no evidence that [sanctions] have worked, or that they will work -- then you corner yourself, because at that point you have no argument left."
As the Crisis Group report puts it: "If it is either sanctions, whose success is hard to imagine, or military action, whose consequences are terrifying to contemplate, that is not a choice. It is an abject failure."
Iran has long insisted that its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful energy purposes, although the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors nuclear activity inside Iran, recently reported it has seen signs of increasing uranium enrichment of the sort that might lead to weapon production.
The government of Israel is deeply concerned about the possibility of Iran gaining possession of a nuclear weapon and has threatened to take military action to prevent it from doing so, a course of action that American officials have repeatedly indicated they do not support.
But as the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday, the U.S. still does not believe that Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon.Oleh :andri luntungan
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