Either way you look at it, the Chinese are not going to support tough economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic unless they get something valuable in return. Like all rational actors in the international system today, China is probably using some element of cost-benefit analysis in order to determine what its best course of action is vis-a-vis Iran. And for good reason, because the Chinese Government has a lot at stake, both inside Iran and within the Persian Gulf.

It's baffling to me that the United States thinks it can obtain Chinese support for a stronger sanctions resolution when they repeatedly sell weapons and logistical equipment to Taiwan. Like it or not, Taiwan is still a relevant issue in China, and any act that subverts or sabotages their interests on the matter will be met with disdain and countermeasures. Obviously we can't say for certain, but American support for Taiwan could be a factor in China's reluctance to press Iran to change course on its nuclear program.

The United States cannot simply stand back and pursue policies that either harm or offend a potential partner at the U.N.S.C. level. If China was not a permanent member on the council, then perhaps Washington could live without their support. But China is a permanent member, and therefore Washington should do anything in its power to get Beijing on board. If a nuclear-armed Iran is such a scary proposition for the United States, then the President needs to start making sacrifices on other fronts.

Perhaps temporarily severing U.S.-Taiwanese and U.S.-Tibetan ties would help. I'm not saying that it will, but it would be a far more significant way to bribe China then...say....run policies that harm China's national-interests.

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It would be a good thing to distinguish between what most people recognize as realism and what Stephen Walt calls realism. Maybe we could call the latter Swealism for short.

Swealism diverges from realism in the frequency and vehemence with which it ascribes to other governments the motivations Swealists imagine they might have if they were in other governments' shoes. The Swealist view of Iran assumes that the Tehran regime seeks a nuclear capability primarily for deterrence, and for that reason can easily be deterred from doing anything irresponsible with that capability once acquired. Multiple reasons therefore emerge that explain why China would not consider an Iranian nuclear capability, or even an Iranian nuclear arsenal, that big a deal.

That Swealism implicitly ascribes to the Chinese a very sophisticated outlook on geopolitics may or may not be a defect. That it ascribes to the Chinese an outlook that does not stem primarily from China's own experience definitely is. China disapproves of economic sanctions -- not just against Iran, but against other governments as well -- because it is sensitive to the idea that sanctions against China could be called for in response to Chinese conduct. Tibet, Taiwan, suppression of religion, suppression of free speech, interference with the Internet, manipulation of the currency: the list of current and potential reasons Western nations might have to demonstrate their disapproval of Chinese conduct goes on for miles. The Chinese leadership is seeking China's place in the world order, but is not yet confident of it, certainly not enough to risk establishing a precedent that might one day be turned against China itself.

How would an attempt to persuade Beijing that an American military strike on Iran is squarely on the table change the Chinese calculus? It wouldn't. China might regard such a strike as foolish, and would certainly try to capitalize on its unpopularity in various parts of the world if it actually happened. Supporting punishing sanctions against Iran as means to preempt an action not directed against China, though, would be seen in Beijing as a an action involving risks for China, undertaken to prevent the United States from doing something reckless.

I am skeptical that Chinese (and Russian) objections to sanctions strong enough to influence Iranian behavior can ever be overcome. It certainly won't be through hints or even threats that America might take a step that China would see as less threatening to it than the precedent it would set by supporting sanctions that could, for whatever reason, one day be called for against China itself.

"For my part, I found the original leak more reassuring than the administration's efforts at damage control, even though as a general rule I think leaks like this are bad for policymaking." In other words, if you agree with the policy, leaks that disclose internal bureaucratic disagreements over the policy are wrong, but if you disagree, they are OK?

The fact that China and Russia may not have the same incentives to disuade Iran from developing a nuclear capability as we do is a bit of a sticky wicket. Realism or whatever you label it, as you point out they are obviously not as concerned about an Iranian bomb as we. It is almost a certainty that any US unilateral effort will fail, especially in the absence of the other two major players at the UNSC. Yet it is also a certainty that we will continue to embarrass ourselves by trying to enlist their support for stronger sanctions when their own interests are not as involved, or may be opposed to such action. And it is very probable that they will capitalize on any negative world reaction to a US and/or Israeli military expedition against Iran. We need to think carefully about the potential long-range damage we will incur from such action. Diplomacy can be frustrating and often unproductive, but is contemplating war always the only final answer?

Unless Obama and his administration want to retreat to the Bush administration's bullying tactics and to unilateralism, we need to seriously consider the damage to our international interests from ramping up the pressure on Iran, especially when we have no more evidence of their actual intent to join the nuclear community than we did of Saddam Hussein's WMD threat.

As far as I can tell, it is completely a myth that Obama ever offered Iran an “unconditional” outreach. From the outside one cannot know for sure, but Administration behavior strongly suggests that, despite various statements that sounded a new tone of balance and thoughtfulness, no plan ever existed in the Obama Administration for a sincere and unconditional negotiation with Iran for the purpose of achieving a mutually acceptable compromise settlement.

Such a settlement would surely have included some understanding about U.S. consultation with Iran about its fleet movements in the Persian Gulf, U.S. acceptance of an emergent but still independent Iran that would remain a challenger of Israeli military dominance of the region, U.S. recognition of an Iranian role in Iraq akin to the American role in Canada, U.S. efforts to prevent anti-Iranian terrorism from Pakistani Baluchistan, and serious bilateral coordination once again over Afghanistan, and some sort of U.S. acceptance of the principle that the Mideast would be better off with a common set of standards for regional nuclear behavior. If any official in Washington is contemplating such a U.S.-Iranian settlement, I would very much like to hear about it.

This point is very much worth belaboring because it is critical to interpreting Tehran’s behavior. It is hard to imagine why Tehran would make much effort to compromise unless it sees some sign that the U.S. would at least place most of the issues enumerated above on the table for serious negotiation.

I would be surprised if Gates’ memo actually got that precise because such honesty would probably not have been career-enhancing and would have required analysis going way beyond the boundaries of politically-correct thinking. Nevertheless, a statement that Obama’s Iran strategy needs to be thought through implies the necessity of coming to grips with those politically sensitive issues, so it is easy to understand why the New York Times report embarrassed the White House.

In 1981 Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq and the same naysayers had warned Israel before handnot to attack stating that a "catastrophic regional war would ensue that would consume the entire Middle East." Nothing happened. Iraq did not launch any counterattacks and there was no war.

In 2007 the Bush administration warned Israel not to attack the nuclear reactor being built by Syria with help from North Korea and the same "region wide war and conflagration" words were uttered. Israel destroyed the reactor and there was no regional war and there was no attack by Syria.

Israel arose from the ashes of the Holocaust when six million Jews, of whom one million were children, were murdered. Israel has learned to depend on its own people, not the false promises of others, to defend itself. It is the only country in the Middle East that never asked for one American soldier to defend it, despite the fact that it is the size of the State of New Jersey and has a population of only seven million people while the enemies who surround it have more than one hundred million people.

Iran's leaders have repeatedly denied the Holocaust ever happened, and have repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel off the map. They armed Hezbollah with missiles, of which more than six thousand fell on Israeli cities in the summer of 2006. Iran bombed and destroyed the Israeli embassy and Jewish cultural center in Argentina, arms and trains all the Palestinian terrorist groups that deny Israel's existence, and on a daily basis calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. The thousands of rockets Hamas fired in 2008 on Israeli cities, schools, hospitals, and homes all came from Iran and Iran has since sent Hamas and Hezbollah much more powerful weapons that can kill thousands of Israelis.

Israel cannot and should not rely on the promises of America. Israel should do whatever it can to stop Iran's development of a nuclear weapon. The naysayers, when not claiming an Israeli attack to be "a disaster" or cause "region wide war" also state that "at worst it will set back Iran's rush to the bomb by a few years." If you are a nation that saw six million of your people murdered while the world sat by and did absolutely nothing to stop it, and another country that is rushing to build a weapon of mass destruction threatens to annihilate you, then you take whatever steps are necessary to prevent another Holocaust, and delaying the murders of perhaps hundreds of thousands of your citizens for a few years is definitely preferable to doing nothing, especially as countries like China and Russia try to prevent you from defending your people because their main concern is solely about receiving Iranian oil and money to buy arms from them.