Mixed-Up On Iran

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, July 08, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Mideast: As Iran continues to work on a nuclear weapon that will forever shift the world's balance of power, the U.S. position gets muddier by the day. What, exactly, is our policy?

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Related Topics: Iran

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Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the "clock has continued to tick" on Iran, which so far has ignored the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.S., NATO and the European Union to proceed with its prohibited nuclear program. But what's it ticking down to?

The U.S. has officially decided to give Iran until the end of this year to halt its nuclear program and show its good faith as a member of the global community.

All well and good. Let diplomacy work. But what about when time expires, and Iran's still building a nuke? What then? The signals the White House is sending are mixed, to put it mildly.

Last Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden seemed to suggest the U.S. has given Israel a green light to attack Iran. As he said on ABC's "This Week": "We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they're existentially threatened."

Within hours, the State Department corrected Biden, saying there's "no green light" for an Israeli attack. This, it emphasized, is a matter for Mideast governments to work on, and the U.S. would seek "even stricter" sanctions on Iran if talks fail.

And on Tuesday, President Obama reversed Biden's remarks, saying the U.S. had "absolutely not" approved an attack by Israel. "We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East," Obama said.

Problem is, Saudi Arabia — the Mideast's major Arabic power broker — has already made it clear it would not stop Israel from flying over its territory to attack archenemy Iran.

Is all this an exercise in constructive ambiguity, keeping the opponent off guard by not letting him know your true intent? Are we winking at Israel and Saudi Arabia? Or is it simply confusion?

According to several news reports, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided not to ask the U.S. for permission to attack Iran. He fears the new administration would say no.

Given Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for Israel to be wiped off the map, Israel lives with a very real threat — one that will become deadly if Iran gets a nuke.

A nuke in the hands of Iran would be a game changer — one that would endanger not just Israel, but also Iraq, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Southern Europe. The world's balance of power would shift, and many of our allies would be in danger.

With so much at stake, is ambiguity the best policy? Not as far as we're concerned. In both word and deed, the U.S. needs to make it clear to Tehran that a nuclear weapon will not be tolerated.

Intelligence estimates say the Iranians may be as little as one year away from having a workable nuclear weapon. If they think we won't do anything about it, they'll keep working on it.

"I'm hopeful," Mullen says, "that . . . dialogue is productive. I worry about it a great deal if it's not." So do we.