Can the US stop Iran going nuclear?

At last night's 'event', Romney claimed that if Obama is re-elected 'Iran Will Get A Nuclear Weapon'. He also claimed that if he is elected Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

Now granted, this is a Romney pledge and so there is every chance Mitt will have decided he is for Iranian nukes by the time of the election. But how on earth does Romney believe he can make that guarantee?

If all it took to prevent Iran getting a nuclear weapon was for the US or Israel to perform a bombing run the Bushehr reactor would already be rubble. Obama was busy bombing Libya while Romney thought he was being too aggressive. Now granted this is not the only position Romney has held on Libya, (Jake Tapper counted five but that was last month so by now it may be six), but one thing Obama cannot be faulted on is his willingness to use the full array of US power when it appears that doing so might actually have the intended effect.

Just like they did with the Iraq war, Republicans are selling the idea of a war with Iran on false claims of both the consequences of inaction and the cost of action. There is in fact no reliable evidence that Iran is doing anything other than completing the civilian nuclear plants started by the Shah.

There have been plenty of sensationalist reports, most recently the IAEA claim that Iran had contacted a 'top Soviet nuclear scientist' which collapsed last week after it turned out that the scientist in question is not a nuclear scientist at all. And yes, Iran was given good reason to build a nuclear weapon when George W. Bush gave notice of his intention to invade Iraq, Iran and North Korea in his 'axis of evil' speech.

Rather less attention is being paid to the fact that Iran is a theocracy and the Supreme Leader has pronounced a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Juan Cole has an excellent piece on this. In brief the problem for the Supreme Leader is that his power is based on his moral authority which in turn is based on a thousand years of tradition.

Cole suggests that what Iran is really interested in is developing a 'latent' nuclear capacity similar to that which India and Pakistan had for over a decade. The aim being not to assemble an actual weapon but to have the ability to do so on short notice should a future George W. Bush threaten to invade.

I see the nuclear program as a part of the ongoing power struggle between Ahmedinejad and Khamenei, a struggle that recently escalated as Khamenei proposed eliminating the post of President as part of a scheme to consolidate power in his own hands. Ahmedinejad's best chance to remain in power is to provoke a war with Israel or the US.

The consequence of an attack would be the same in either case: Any attack that does not result in regime change is only going to accelerate the Iranian nuclear program and strengthen the reactionary elements in the regime.

Stopping Iran going nuclear is much more difficult than simply ordering a bombing raid. The real world is so much more complex than the one in which Romney's sound bites work.