The best way to highlight my point is to outline three key alternative scenarios. According to the first, the United States declares “victory” in Iraq (say, claiming that the Iraqis are ready to take care of their own security) and withdraws most of its troops. At the same time, it concludes that Iran’s nuclear armament program cannot be stopped, but that like the USSR, Iran can be deterred from using its nuclear bombs. Hence, the United States and its allies can learn to live with a nuclear Iran. In this scenario Iran becomes the superpower of the Middle East, supporting ever more actively and extensively rising Islamist groups from Turkey to Yemen, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Palestine. A Shia theocracy is likely to prevail in major parts of Iraq, and Sunnis may well be subject to an even graver bloodshed. In the following years, the United States will be viewed in the region and elsewhere as a paper tiger and as an unreliable ally. Indeed, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are already expressing their concerns that the United States will abandon them and are increasing their anti-American rhetoric. This scenario is close to what the conventional wisdom foresees these days among those who study the Middle East.

According to a second scenario, which might be named after Vice President Cheney, the United States declares victory and withdraws most of its troops from Iraq just as in the first scenario but, at the same time, its military strikes the nuclear facilities in Iran. Such an attack would cause many civilian casualties because some of the nuclear sites are located in highly populated areas. It would further inflame the already widespread anti-American sentiments in region and in the world. It would weaken the governments in the region that are viewed as closest to the United States, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. The likelihood that it would succeed in significantly setting back the Iranian nuclear program is small, given that the program is widely dispersed and well protected by cement and placed inside mountains. That is, such a strike may well further promote the notion that United States’ days as a superpower are over. Iraq and the region are even more likely to become part of Iran’s sphere of influence than under the first scenario.

In contrast, according to a third scenario, the United States declares victory in Iraq and gradually leaves but responds to earlier Iranian overtures and works out a nonaggression treaty with Iran. Iran agrees to cease the enrichment of uranium, and demonstrate to IAEA inspectors that it has no (or has disbanded) its nuclear armament program. Iran also agrees not to provide arms to various allied groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shia militia in Iraq. The United States commits itself not to use its military forces or CIA to overthrow Iran’s Mullah government; that is, to forego forced regime change. The United States also agrees to close some of the military bases that Iran feels the United States has positioned on its various borders, such as in Afghanistan and Kurdistan. In this scenario, a negotiated settlement between the Sunnis and Shia in Iraq becomes much more likely. The same holds for keeping at bay various Islamist groups in other Middle Eastern countries as well as, arguably, a gradual development of political reforms and one day, democratization, in these nations. This scenario, my favorite, is spelled out in a new book Security First, just published by Yale University Press. One can of course spin other scenarios. The main point though stands: debates as to what is going to happen in Iraq if the United States leaves, escalates, or merely holds on are all woefully incomplete half-thoughts if they do not encompass the ways one deals with Iran. The two decisions simply refuse to be decoupled. Those who are searching for the road to the future of the region should realize that it runs through Tehran.

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Micro- blogging: In Sweden, they have a new bumper sticker. It reads: “Be nice to Americans— or they will bring you democracy.”

Amitai Etzioni is a professor of international relations at The George Washington University. His most recent book is Security First: For A Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy just published by Yale University Press.

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