The Foreign Service Journal, June 2007

that during the delay Washington could somehow effect regime change; and third, that the new regime would be so appealing that fears about its nuclearization would vanish, or else (optimally) the new regime would for- swear nuclear weapons. The problem with this logic is that the likely effect of bombing Iran would be to shore up the hard-liners within the current regime, not cause their demise. In addition, if bombing has the effect of entrenching the current leadership, any delay in Iran’s nuclear program would be offset by the strengthening of the current regime. The prospect of targeted air strikes eventually escalat- ing to regime change also raises a whole host of questions about the postwar environment, and these questions have not been addressed by war proponents. Who would take power in Iran? Would the deep ethnic and sectarian fis- sures that are touted as such a source of weakness for the Iranian regime bubble up to the surface and create a low- level civil war as they have in Iraq? What would be the medium- and long-term strategic implications? Similar questions were either not asked or were answered with propaganda and wishful thinking before the Iraq War, and America is still paying the price. We should not repeat the same mistakes in Iran. The Deterrence Option Although the preventive war option for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program is remarkably unappealing, the prospect of deterrence raises a host of undesirable con- sequences, as well. These also warrant thorough consid- eration. The question of how to deal with the Islamic Republic would change dramatically if one were to accept the assumption that the regime acts not according to rational calculations, but theological and ideological ones. The allegation that Iran is fundamentally undeterrable has become common. For some, the situation is akin to that of Europe in the 1930s, with Ahmadinejad in the role of Hitler. Bernard Lewis, the Princeton historian who has advised Vice President Cheney, has gone so far as to F O C U S J U N E 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37