Im Mai werde ich drei Wochen den Iran bereisen, weshalb mich die Iran-Berichterstattung derzeit besonders interessiert. Jessica T. Mathews schreibt in der New York Review of Books einen exzellenten Artikel darüber, wie sich die Beziehung zwischen dem Iran und der USA entwickelten, um danach auf die aktuelle Situation einzugehen.

Sie weist auch auf die Risiken eines militärischen Angriffs hin:

Even the strongest proponents of air strikes against Iran’s known nuclear facilities do not argue that the result would guarantee anything more than a delay—perhaps two years or somewhat longer—in Iran’s program. Facilities can be rebuilt and physicists and engineers would continue to have the expertise needed to make nuclear weapons. After years of effort, Iran can now make at home most of what it needs to build a bomb.

When the program is rebuilt after an attack there would be no IAEA inspectors and no cameras to monitor its advance, since monitoring depends on cooperation. As outsiders attempted to track the reconstituted program and prepare for another round of attacks, they would know far less than we do today about the scale, scope, and location of what is happening.

The political consequences would be longer lasting. An attack is likely to unite the country around the nuclear program as never before. The hardest of Iran’s ideological hard-liners would be strengthened against those who had advocated restraint and reconciliation, thereby radicalizing and probably prolonging clerical rule. Following air strikes, it would be easy for Iranian leaders to make the case that the country faces unrelenting international enmity and must acquire nuclear weapons in order to deter more attacks.