America’s missing Iran strategy

The airstrikes didn’t completely destroy the nuclear program. They only bought time.

President Donald Trump’s decision to strike three Iranian nuclear sites this summer sent a useful deterrence message to American adversaries. Yet recent developments are a reminder that a military campaign can’t permanently end the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of the bomb.

A recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency shows just how difficult the problem remains. The regime has blocked international inspectors from accessing the sites bombed by the United States and Israel five months ago.

Nor will it tell the UN nuclear watchdog how much 60 percent enriched uranium it retains, as required under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Satellite imagery suggests fresh construction underway around a new nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain, about a mile from the bombed Natanz site.

Iran’s belligerence also show how events in the Middle East don’t occur in a vacuum, and American adversaries are always looking for new opportunities to work together. With Russia bogged down in Ukraine, China has moved to deepen its involvement with Iran.

Tehran wants to trade oil for Chinese surface-to-air missile batteries, long-rage surveillance radar and fighter jets. This could stabilize a shaky Iranian government while destabilizing the region.

After five rounds of talks earlier this year, there have been no negotiations with the U.S. since it bombed Iran.

The decade-old nuclear deal has expired, and Iranian leaders say they’re no longer bound by the terms.

Snapback sanctions have been reimposed, further damaging the country’s already anemic economy. The rial currency is in free fall.

Businesses are closing, with a third of companies surveyed by the Tehran Chamber of Commerce planning layoffs. A record-setting drought, following decades of mismanagement, has left the country’s capital city without enough water, and Iran’s president has warned it may need to be evacuated.

This misery could help fuel mass protests. How much dissent will the Islamist theocrats tolerate? The mullahs have tried to release some pressure, for example, by taking a more relaxed attitude to women not covering their hair with the traditional hijab and turning a blind eye to women riding motorbikes. But those small signs of opening belie a bloody crackdown against the opposition.

There’s nothing wrong with hoping for the fall of a rotten regime, but hope isn’t a strategy. Despite Trump’s insistence that airstrikes completely destroyed the Iranian nuclear program, the bombing only bought the administration time.

The best way forward is to retain the credible threat of force, maintain strict economic pressure and signal an openness to negotiation. China also needs to understand that selling sophisticated weapons to Iran will disrupt Beijing’s relations with not just Israel and the U.S. but also the Gulf Arabs.

Another war is not inevitable, but avoiding it will require recognizing the problem still exists and can only be resolved with diplomacy backed by the credible threat of force.