This would be really funny if the subject wasn't nuts with nukes:
Iran will pursue its nuclear quest although it has reaped few gains from a totem of national pride that has cost it well over $100 billion in lost oil revenue and foreign investment alone, two think-tanks said on Wednesday.
A report by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Federation of American Scientists said Iran's atomic work could not simply be ended or "bombed away" and that diplomacy was the only way to keep it peaceful.
"It is entangled with too much pride - however misguided - and sunk costs simply to be abandoned," the report's authors, Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group and Carnegie's Karim Sadjadpour, said of Iran's five-decade-old nuclear program, which began under the U.S.-allied shah.
I know I lack the nuance gene when I am presented with the facts that 1) Iran has gained little from pursuing nuclear weapons; 2) Iran has paid a high cost for pursuing nuclear weapons; 3) Iran has pursued nukes for decades; and 4) we can't "end" Iran's pursuit with bombing; and then conclude from those facts that we have to try harder to persuade Iran's nutball rulers to accept a totally peaceful nuclear program.
I tend to look at those facts and conclude that Iran really wants nuclear weapons and Iran will only pretend to agree to measures that will keep their nuclear program peaceful.
I'll even agree that it is unlikely that bombing can "end" Iran's nuclear program. That's the problem of waiting so long, of course. At this point the nuclear knowledge base is so wide and deep that mere things can be rebuilt if the brains survive. But I've always accepted that bombing won't end Iran's nuclear program. I've always accepted that bombing just buys time. Faced with the alternatives of Iran nuclear next year or Iran nuclear in five years, I choose the latter.
Really, it's the regime, stupid. Even though the nuclear program is popular, it is possible that in a free Iran, Iranians will decide that however much they like the idea of being a nuclear-armed power, the cost is too high. And if the Iranian people don't choose to abandon their nuclear program? A non-nutball Iran is less of a threat if it has nuclear weapons. It will be a proliferation threat rather than an active threat which might be tempted to use their nukes--or use their nukes as a shield to commit more aggression.
What I don't conclude is that a regime that has spent decades pursuing nuclear weapons at a cost of well over $100 billion can be persuaded to accept a verifiable end to their pursuit of nuclear weapons. North Korea shows just how poor nutballs can accept their country becoming if the goal of getting nuclear weapons can be reached. And given the links between North Korea's more successful program and Iran, how do Carnegie and FAS conclude that Iran doesn't believe that only a little more investment will get them to their goal of nuclear weapons?
Why do these giants of leftist conventional wisdom believe that when so close to their goal, the Iranians will step back if only our diplomacy can rise to the occasion?
Of course, these are the same people who are just fine with walking away from Iraq after we have paid great costs to end the Saddam regime and defeat the al Qaeda, Baathist, and Iranian threats to a budding democracy that we planted in Iraq. So it makes sense that our left's best and brightest believe Iranian mullahs lack the ability to struggle for an objective until victory is assured.
Freaking echelon above reality. If only our enemies are as weak-willed as our left in foreign affairs displays itself to be.
UPDATE: We talk to keep Iran from going nuclear. Iran talks to go nuclear. Oh, and the Iranians expect to have "more flexibility" to defend their nuclear program, so to speak, after their June pretend elections:
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili sounded a defiant note ahead of a new round of talks with world powers in Kazakhstan, saying on Thursday they had to recognize Iran's right to a nuclear program to see any breakthrough.
Jalili also said the Islamic Republic would defend its right to enrich uranium with "more rigor" after its presidential election in June.
"The impact of the election will be that ... our people will defend its right with more rigor," he said in a speech at a university in the Kazakh city of Almaty.
But if we only try harder, we can get an agreement with Iran where they agree not to pursue nuclear weapons. This will work out swell.
