is still years from completing an efficient enrichment infrastructure, constructing a nuclear arsenal and developing a reliable means of delivery. By agreeing to a compressed timeline, the U.S. only narrows its options and makes a solution even more elusive.
As the United States again contemplates its Iran conundrum, it should eschew calls for a take-it-or-leave-it deal. The history of Iran's confrontation with the international community suggests that keeping it a crisis situation benefits the Islamic Republic. Ironically, it is the Western powers that have generated alarmist conditions. And then to escape the predicament of their own making, they offer Iran more concessions and further incentives.
To avoid a repeat of that outcome, it would be prudent to have a sense of proportionality and appreciate that, in the end, time works best for the United States and not the economically beleaguered theocracy.
Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Article 2.
The Guardian
Whether it's North Korea or Iran, sanctions won't work
Simon Jenkins
13 February 2013 -- Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "Threats and sanctions have not weakened the regime’s determination to proceed [with nuclear weapons], but rather weakened opposition to it’. Photograph: Sven Hoppe/EPA
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