Wampum

Over at TPM Cafe Jeffrey Lewis sees a bright side to Iran's enrichment of uranium:

One possible upside is that Ahmadinejad's claim that "Iran has joined the nuclear countries of the world" offers a face saving way to accept a negotiated compromise -- not that either Tehran or West seems particularly interested in that right now.

In order to find a compromise, Iran's motivations for the development of its nuclear program would have to be met. What are those motivations?

For Iran -- and this is where Ahmadinejad's statement comes in -- the bottom line is reliable civilian nuclear energy, defense of its rights under the NPT, maintenance of its pride and technological development, and assurances against attack.

Michael Levi, also at TPM Cafe notes that many proposed compromises are likely to fail because such proposals do not provide assurances against attack:

But he ignores the one key Iranian need -- assurances against attack -- that no clever nuclear energy arrangement can address. This blind-spot seems to be a common problem with a host of recent Iran proposals, like one by Geoff Forden and John Thompson that would provide Iran with booby-trapped centrifuges, and one by Moscow that would enrich Iranian uranium on Russian soil. Until we have any prospect of addressing the security question, we're not going to get anywhere. And recent developments in Iran aren't driving us in that direction.

Why does Iran feel the need to possess nuclear weapons in order to have sufficient assurances against attack?

Jonah Goldberg, of all people, provides one possible answer:

A major part of the argument for toppling Saddam was that such action would discourage others from following on his path. Making an example of Saddan would send a signal to other rogue states that we weren't kidding around. Everyone always understood that there was a ironic double-edge to this argument. The reason we went after Saddam's Iraq instead of North Korea was that Iraq was an easier target because it didn't -- yet -- have nuclear weapons. The conclusion states like Iran took from the Iraq invasion, as well as the first Gulf War, was that the best protection against regime change was nuclear weapons. Who can say they were wrong?

Condi Rice has acknowledged many tactical mistakes. If Goldberg is right, it appears that we can add another giant strategic mistake to the list.