In a Financial Times piece critical of both President Obama and his neocon adversaries, Philip Stephens takes a sobering look at a potentially nuclear Iran. An excerpt:

“At West Point, Mr Obama insisted that the US remains the indispensable nation. This is true as far it goes – American military might is unmatched and there are not many serious conflicts one can imagine being settled without US engagement. But if Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria prove anything it is that it is also the insufficient superpower.

Republican critics will doubtless step up the charge that Mr Obama is not tough enough against adversaries. Yet those same critics have elevated tax cuts above defence spending in the sequestration process to cut the budget deficit. Bluff posturing comes cheap, but America is not in the mood to fight more wars.

The US approach to Iran’s nuclear programme has measured up to the facts of the new order. The uncomfortable truth, denied by Washington hawks, is that if the regime in Tehran is determined to acquire a nuclear weapon there is not much anyone else, including the indispensable nation, can do about it. The international community can raise the cost of such a programme with sanctions. It could delay it by starting another Middle East war. But if Iran wants the bomb it can get it.

Things may yet come to war, but the only real hope of a nuclear-free Iran lies in persuading its leaders they have more to gain without the bomb.”