California Conservative

Today’s WSJ editorial examines how the negotiating strategy is working so far.

“For two years now, the Bush Administration has willingly taken a back seat to European diplomacy to induce Iran to abandon its nuclear-weapons program. In the last few weeks, the world has been able to see what this non-cowboy strategy has achieved.”

The dismal results speak for themselves.

What can the world do? Get tough. Get serious. Take away Iran’s soccer ball?

“Perhaps it’s time to try a different strategy. We aren’t referring here to economic sanctions via the U.N. Security Council. China and Russia aren’t likely to agree to sanctions, and even if they did (after many months of haggling) Iran may think it can ride them out in a world of $60 oil.

Leaving aside–but not ruling out–the option of military intervention, the Iranian regime is vulnerable to diplomatic pressure from without and even more so to democratic pressure from below. Yet the Bush Administration has given comparatively little support to Iranian pro-democracy groups, and it has made no effort to organize bans on Iranian participation in prestigious international forums or at sporting and cultural events. Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy suggests, for starters, barring the Iranian national soccer team from the World Cup.

Perhaps even this is too militant for the likes of Chancellor Schröder. But it would be the beginning of a serious Iran policy.”

Of course, knowing how Saddam treated his athletes, Iran might just kill all of them until next season. Talk about being cut from the team.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 22nd, 2005 at 6:34 am and is filed under Europe, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Terrorism, U.N., W. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.