The Iran Nuclear Crisis May Be Headed for a Showdown
Iran is on the verge of being able to build a bomb, and the US lacks good diplomatic options for restraining it.
2023 could be a tense year.
Photographer: ATTA KENARE/AFPLast year saw soaring tensions in two regions at the center of US statecraft: Europe and East Asia. The great crisis of this year could come in a region Washington would prefer to forget: the Middle East. As Iran comes closer to the bomb, a slow-motion nuclear showdown may accelerate — while the war in Ukraine makes this Middle Eastern crisis harder to resolve.
President Joe Biden initially sought de-escalation with Russia and Iran so the US could focus on China. In 2021, he pursued “stable and predictable” relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin; with Iran, he sought a “longer and stronger” nuclear deal that would replace the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that one predecessor, Barack Obama, had negotiated, and another, Donald Trump, had forsaken. Yet Moscow didn’t go along with Biden’s plan, and neither, it seems, has Tehran.