Iran’s Nuclear Program: U.S. Options After the Elections

Abstract

Iran’s growing nuclear capability is emerging as the number one issue for the Bush Administration in its second term. For the past three years, the dominant focus on Iraq, in the words of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, “sucked the oxygen” from other security issues. Now, however, it is increasingly Iran that stands center-stage in defining the uses and limits of the strategy of preemption, the agenda for the broader Middle East, and the future of America’s relations with Europe.