Ilan Berman is worried about the Bush administration's strategy towards Iran's growing nuclear development.
You may have missed it, but sometime this spring, the Bush administration decided to subcontract its Iran strategy to Europe.For the Bush administration, a trans-Atlantic strategy on Iran would certainly serve as a salve for European alliances frayed by the Iraq war and the war on terror. Moreover, hopeful U.S. officials say, buying into the EU-3 approach is a necessary prerequisite for galvanizing a more forceful European response to Iran's atomic advances when the current set of talks does invariably break down.
Sooner or later, though, Washington is likely to grasp that such reasoning increasingly constitutes the triumph of hope over experience. And when the White House does get serious, it will discover that there is no substitute for an independent American strategy toward the Islamic Republic — one that is designed to deter, contain and ultimately transform the regime in Tehran.
Depending on the diplomacy of Great Britain, France and Germany to successfully prevent a nuclear-armed Iran -- one of the two or three most serious threats facing us today -- seems like pure folly.
Posted by Alan at May 6, 2005 12:06 PM