While the topic du jour continues to be getting Egypt right, I offer observations derived from remarks I made today at a forum on U.S. policy options for dealing with Iran. The forum was organized by the National Security Network and the Center for American Progress. I was asked to address possible and acceptable policy options, how we should go about pursuing those options, and how steps taken toward one outcome would rule out or empower other outcomes.

Much of the American public discourse on Iran exhibits a couple of unfortunate characteristics. One is a demonization of Iran that fosters emotion over analysis and that encourages absolutism of the “must prevent through whatever means necessary” sort while discouraging more sober assessment of costs and benefits of different courses of action. The other is a remarkably narrow focus on one issue—Iran's nuclear program—and even more narrowly on one aspect of that program: the enrichment of uranium. This is a classic case of goal substitution, as if spinning centrifuges were a surrogate for everything that matters in the relationship of the United States and Iran. If we could somehow rid the discourse of these unhelpful attributes it would greatly improve the climate for arriving at a sound policy toward the Islamic republic.

Probably no agreement with Iran is attainable that rejects a continued Iranian enrichment program. A nuclear program of some sort, as distinct from a nuclear weapons program, has very broad support among Iranians. It also is a recognized right of nations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It is simply not realistic to think that a pressured Iran is one day going to cry uncle and give up the program.

A preferred and feasible policy outcome is one that entails a peaceful, nonmilitary Iranian nuclear program, as Tehran claims it is conducting. This is preferable to an outcome that includes Iranian nuclear weapons because (perhaps among other reasons) it would involve less change from the status quo and thus less uncertainty, and less chance of destabilizing responses to an Iranian nuclear weapon. The outcome is still feasible, and thus it still should be pursued, because any future development of Iranian nuclear weapons would involve decisions in Tehran that have not yet been made.

A less preferred outcome, but one that the United States and the West can live with—and thus does not warrant a whatever-means-necessary approach to heading it off—is one that does include an Iran with nuclear weapons. This is the Iran-related topic on which there is the most glaring lack of analysis, or even logic. Despite the enormous amount of rhetoric about how awful such a contingency would be, and the taken-for-granted assumption that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be unacceptably dangerous and damaging, there is almost no careful consideration of exactly how and why this would be so. The less subtle version of this conventional wisdom envisions an Iranian bolt-from-the-blue with a nuclear weapon. This would be a prospect only if the principles of deterrence were somehow repealed or if Iranian leaders were suicidal, neither of which is the case. The more subtle, and very frequently heard version, is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be more likely than a non-nuclear Iran to engage in other behavior damaging to the region or to U.S. interests. Just why this should be so never seems to get examined; instead the conventional wisdom is an inchoate notion that a nuclear Iran would somehow feel its oats and consequently would be up to no good.

Consider carefully what conditions would have to be present for an Iranian nuclear weapon to make a difference in Iranian behavior. There would have to be something that Iran is not doing now but would want to do and that Tehran sees as being in its interest to do. There also would have to be some threat, whether stated or implicit, that someone else is holding over Tehran's head and that is the reason that Iran is not doing what it otherwise would like to do. And execution of that threat would have to be so serious that it would be plausible for Iran to respond by escalating to the level of using nuclear weapons, which is why in the presence of Iranian nuclear weapons the threat would no longer be credible and no longer restrain Iranian behavior. I have never seen any analysis that fills in these blanks and identifies behaviors and threats that would fit this pattern. In thinking about this pattern myself, I find it hard to come up with a plausible scenario that fits it.

One other important aspect of a preferred outcome for U.S. policy, with or without Iranian nuclear weapons, is a reduction in U.S.-Iranian tension and an imparting of some of the stability, confidence, and mutual understanding that is so badly missing from the relationship now. Progress toward this outcome would reduce the danger of crises or animosity spinning out of control. It also would make possible positive cooperation on matters of mutual concern. And there are a good many such matters—such as the future of Afghanistan, just to name one that is currently of high interest to both countries.

How should the United States go about pursuing its preferred outcome and influencing Iranian decision-making in a desirable direction? Sanctions, sure, but in this as in any other case, sanctions are only one side of an attempt at influencing the other party. Just as important as the prospect that one course of behavior will bring pain is confidence in the minds of the people we are trying to influence that an alternate course will bring something better. The United States and its western partners have done very little to impart such confidence to Iranian decision-makers.

For all the focus on uranium enrichment, the western side has done little to explore with Iran the possibilities for imparting greater transparency to the Iranian program as a form of safeguards against diversion to military purposes. Our leaders and negotiators have uttered a few things about how someday the west might trust Iran with its own enrichment program, but we have given the Iranians almost no reason to believe any such utterance. Why should they believe it, given that the incentives being offered—as at the recent dialogue of the deaf at Istanbul—are all about stopping enrichment? The western negotiators seemed to get hung up on Iran's insistence that its right to enrich be explicitly recognized. Why should that recognition be so hard? The United States ought to understand that kind of demand for a clear recognition of principles because it has made the same type of demand to others (Hamas, for example).

The United States and its western partners should expand the agenda with Iran to cover all topics at issue between the two sides, as the Iranians have repeatedly expressed their willingness to do. This would have several advantages. It would encourage the building of trust by demonstrating each side's seriousness of purpose to the other. It would enlarge the negotiating space by making trade-offs between different issues possible, and in so doing would improve the chance of the west getting more of what it wants on the nuclear issue. And it would make possible cooperation, or at at minimum to minimize possible damage, in other areas where Iran can affect western interests, such as in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The United States should avoid saying and doing things that increase Iran 's motivation to acquire nuclear weapons, and to acquire them sooner rather than later. Too much of American policy has done exactly that. There are several possible reasons for Iran to be interested in pursuing nuclear weapons, but surely one of the biggest reasons—perhaps the biggest—is deterrence, especially deterrence of the United States. So all the saber-rattling and other indications of hostility are directly counterproductive if the objective is to reduce the chance that Tehran will develop weapons.

Correcting this serious defect in the U.S. approach toward Iran is not just a matter of having carrots in addition to the sticks somewhere in talking points, position papers, and even public statements. It is a matter of emphasis. It is a matter of the main message that is being imparted to the Iranians by the totality of what we say (and do) and by the vehemence with which we say it. If we convey one theme 90 percent of the time at 90 decibels, it will drown out the other ten percent being conveyed at ten decibels. From Tehran's viewpoint, the overriding message being received is one of pressure and more pressure, of unrelenting animosity, and of lack of acceptance. It is quite understandable for Tehran to conclude that even if it were to end its enrichment program, the state of relations would not fundamentally change and that the principal U.S. goal is, and will remain, regime change. Such a conclusion destroys any Iranian incentive to make concessions on the nuclear program or anything else under discussion. And it increases the Iranian motivation to develop nuclear weapons.