Iran

I'm sorry, but I just had to laugh at this:

Britain and its European allies have backed away from threatening economic sanctions against Iran if the nation is referred to the UN Security Council over its nuclear program.

As Britain, France and Germany began drafting a resolution before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran to the UN, a senior official at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said Britain favoured a gradual, sustained build-up to force Tehran to comply with its international obligations.

"We do not see this leading straight into sanctions," the official said. "We see a gradual build-up of moves that will take place over time. We are not going to (the UN Security Council in) New York to introduce punitive sanctions against Iran. That is not our approach. "

The Security Council has weight and authority on the issues.

"A country cannot ignore the calls and requirements of the Security Council without cost. It brings together major players acting in concert. It can issue political calls which will have weight."

Does anyone in their right mind think that Iran even remotely cares what the Security Council does? I can't believe how self-deluded these diplomats are to think that Tehran is trembling in fear of -- provided they even go through with it -- "a gradual build-up of moves?" What reason is there to think that they have any trepidation about running afoul of international law or place any value on their standing in the eyes of the international community?

Keep in mind that these are the same guys who execute people for the crime of being gay.

Now, in fairness, I don't think that there are any obvious solutions to Iran. Dropping a few bombs won't cow them -- even if our intelligence could figure our where all of their nuclear facilities are hidden -- any more than it did the Taliban. Invasion -- even if we had the manpower -- would be an absolute nightmare.

To the extent I see a good course of action I think it should simply be this: win in Iraq. As Thomas Donnelly says:

The United States is better served in Iran by continuing to stabilize and democratize Iraq and Afghanistan and thus surround Iran.

Another possibility advocated by Mark Steyn is giving them a taste of their own medicine (or, as the Dutch say, giving them a cookie from their own dough):

As the foreign terrorists have demonstrated in Iraq, you don't need a lot of local support to give the impression (at least to Tariq Ali and John Pilger) of a popular insurgency. Would it not be feasible to turn the tables and upgrade Iran's somewhat lethargic dissidents into something a little livelier? A Teheran preoccupied by internal suppression will find it harder to pull off its pretensions to regional superpower status.

Who else could we stir up? Well, did you see that story in the Sunday Telegraph? Eight of the regime's border guards have been kidnapped and threatened with decapitation by a fanatical Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan. I'm of the view that the Shia are a much better long-term bet as reformable Muslims, but given that there are six million Sunni in Iran and that they're a majority in some provinces, would it not be possible to give the regime its own Sunni Triangle?

This strategy also seems to be supported here:

But the Iranian regime is not invulnerable, and Washington knows this. Just as Iran can use the Shiite card to create mischief in the region, the United States could manipulate ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iran, which has significant, largely Sunni, minority populations along its borders.

Indeed. Iran's Kurds also seem like a ripe candidate to promote mischief.