The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to unveil a report Wednesday on what it knows about Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and the early word is that it contains a few bombshells. But let's not overstate its significance. There's no scarcity of reliable information about Iran's nuclear programs, licit and illicit. The only question is whether the report will do much to end the current scarcity of Western will to do something meaningful to check them.
Start with what we already know about Iran's nuclear programs. In September, the IAEA came out with its umpteenth report on Iran.
It noted that Iran had enriched 4.5 tons of low-enriched uranium—sufficient, with further enrichment, for three or four bombs—and that a third of the uranium had been enriched in the last year alone. So much for the miracle of digital deliverance that was supposed to be the Stuxnet computer virus.
It noted that Iran had begun to deploy more advanced centrifuges, capable of enriching uranium at a significantly faster rate than the ones that it had acquired from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. So much for the success of sanctions in shutting down Iran's underground network of nuclear-parts suppliers.
It noted that Iran had enriched 70.8 kilos of uranium to a 20% level, a significant step toward bomb-grade material, and that it was planning to triple production at its heavily fortified facility near the city of Qom. So much for the idea that Iran faces a critical shortage of 20% enriched uranium, or that a diplomatic overture by the West to supply it could check Tehran's nuclear efforts.
Finally, the report made reference to the agency's previous disclosures about the "possible military dimensions" of Iran's nuclear program, including "producing uranium metal . . . into components relevant to a nuclear device" and "missile re-entry vehicle redesign activities for a new payload assessed as being nuclear in nature." So much for the enabling fiction that was the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which judged "with high confidence" that Iran "halted its nuclear weapons program" in the fall of 2003.
The 2007 NIE now joins a September 1962 NIE—which claimed, just a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the Soviets were unlikely to station missiles on the island—in the intelligence community's long hall of infamy. But Wednesday's IAEA report should at least put to rest the intel debate about Iran's drive to build a bomb. What remains is the policy debate.
Such a debate needs to be clear about four things.
First, it needs to abandon the conceit that there is a third way between allowing Iran's nuclear drive to proceed effectively unhindered or to use military force to stop it. The Obama administration came to office seeking a diplomatic grand bargain with Tehran, only to be rebuffed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It then tried sanctions, which came up short in the way most sanctions efforts do. As for covert action, see above. A (bad) argument can be made that a nuclear Iran could be contained. But another round of diplomacy or sanctions guarantees failure, signals weakness, and emboldens the hardest of Iranian hardliners.
Second, the debate must recognize that time is no longer on the West's side: Further temporizing in the face of our choice of evils inevitably means that Iran will get to make the choice for us. Israel may soon have to forsake its own (conventional) military option as Iran moves its nuclear assets to hardened installations. The U.S. doesn't suffer from Israel's military limitations, but further delay only increases the complexity and uncertainties of any strike.
Third, a debate needs to weigh the inevitable unforeseen consequences of a military strike against the all-too-foreseeable consequences of a nuclear Iran. Among the former: more Iranian meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan (particularly as U.S. troops withdraw), efforts to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, and perhaps an opportunistic war with Israel. Among the latter: all of the above, except this time with the added security of a nuclear umbrella, as well as a nuclear proliferation death spiral involving Saudi Arabia, Turkey and soon-to-be Islamist Egypt. If you thought the Cold War was scary, imagine four or five nuclear adversaries in the world's must unstable region, each of them at daggers drawn with one another.
Finally, any debate must take into account what the West can do to hasten the regime's demise. Opponents of military strikes argue that they would help the regime consolidate power. Perhaps. But the regime seems to have succeeded in re-establishing its domestic grip without the alibi of foreign intervention. And it bears wondering what a nuclear Iran might do with its weapons if faced with a slow-motion revolt on the Syrian model. Gently into that good night is not this regime's way.
Those are the contours of a real debate. A final thought: What would a strike on Iran do for President Obama's re-election chances? Improve them, I should think. At least it would be one inarguable accomplishment on which to run.
Write to bstephens@wsj.com
