While there’s a steady drumbeat of support for a military option to “deal with” Iran, I’m skeptical that such an action is needed. Certainly, all other options should be exhausted before an internationally sanctioned military action is taken. I say “internationally sanctioned” because Iran’s nuclear capability is not a direct threat to the US like it is to Europe and the greater middle east. Military action should be spearheaded by a country with a direct interest in the outcome.

Sanctions haven’t made an impact on the government of Iran yet. Two promising areas that could have an impact is to first impact all civilian air traffic and then, if needed, use the “energy weapon” against them.

PoliteTalk.com has an interesting discussion regarding a “soft” way to embargo civilian air traffic by telling carriers they will lose landing rights in Britain and the US if they continue to service Tehran. Carriers will voluntarily give up servicing Iran over losing the ability to land in Heathrow or JFK.

The second option, the “energy weapon”, is explained at the Counterterrorism Blog:

First, 85 percent of Iran’s revenue come from oil. Second, Iran imports most of its consumption of refined products, like gasoline. In fact, Iran consumes a half million barrels of petroleum products per day, of which 40 percent is imported, at a cost of $4 billion to $5 billion per year. Also, the fact that in the past few years, the consumption of petroleum products has increased by 10 percent per annum is putting added pressure on the oil sector.

An oil embargo of Iran would have the same effect there that it would here: economic loss and general pain throughout their commercial and private economies. Its an interesting scenario, an oil rich country that doesn’t have the refining capacity to support its own energy needs.

That fact gives me pause; Iran does have a need for more energy, and that’s the rationale’ they have used to justify their nuclear program. Because of their other public pronouncements against the US and Israel, we believe the real purpose is to build atomic weapons. But we have been fooled before, and should be very careful about entangling ourselves in another conflict based on “intelligence sources”. They often aren’t very “intelligent” at all.