Vice President Cheney is right, about Iran at least.  The United States must not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. 

Time is not on our side.  All the international diplomacy, UN deliberations and compliance deadlines have merely provided Iran with more time to perfect its uranium enrichment process.  While Iranian President Ahmadinejad claims that Iran's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, Iran is in reality inching toward nuclear weapons capability.  By some estimates, it may be able manufacture such weapons by 2009.

What further sanctions are available against Iran to force it to abandon its nuclear ambitions?  While we cannot take the military option off the table, our immediate focus should be to obtain a worldwide embargo on Iranian oil exports.  This would be the first sanction regime to hit Iran hard, as it derives eighty to ninety percent of its export earnings from oil.

If countries such as China and Russia are not willing to cooperate in an embargo, then we must consider legislation to impose some economic sanctions against those countries as well.  Nuclear proliferation is an important enough issue to warrant such tactics.

Sanctioning China and Russia to obtain their cooperation is surely a less draconian step than launching a military strike against Iran.  The military option should be considered a last resort, partly because Iranian missiles are poised to make a retaliatory strike on our bases and allies in the region.

Reports on Iran's nuclear program are expected in November from Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Javier Solana of the European Union.  In these reports, we should look for a realistic plan to verify that Iran's program has an exclusively peaceful intent going forward.  Failing that, the United States should seek a UN Security Council resolution establishing the oil embargo.  At the same time, we should open direct talks with Iran about its nuclear program.

For more of Samuel Berry's views, please visit
http://www.berry2008.org