The Captain’s Journal is fond of Defense Secretary Gates.  Nonetheless, he leaves us with no good choice concerning the nuclear future of Iran.  This is in logical terms what is called a dilemma.  Gates spoke at West Point (h/t Small Wars Journal Blog), and in part had this to say.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes Iran is “hell bent” on acquiring nuclear weapons, but he warned in strong terms of the consequences of going to war over that.

“Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need and, in fact, I believe it would be disastrous on a number of levels,” he said in a speech he was delivering Monday evening at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

A copy of his prepared remarks was provided in advance by the Pentagon.

He said he favors keeping the military option against Iran on the table, “given the destabilizing policies of the regime and the risks inherent in a future Iranian nuclear threat — either directly or through proliferation.”

Gates also said that if the war in Iraq is not finished on favorable terms the consequences could be dire.

“It is a hard sell to say we must sustain the fight in Iraq right now, and continue to absorb the high financial and human costs of this struggle, in order to avoid an even uglier fight or even greater danger to our country in the future,” he said.

But he added that the U.S. experience with Afghanistan — helping the Afghans oust Russian invaders in the 1980s only to abandon the country and see it become a haven for Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network — makes it clear to him that a similar approach in Iraq would have similar results.

The Captain’s Journal echoes these sentiments in the superlative.  Iraq must be finished, and Afghanistan is suffering for troop presence.  So is Iran really “hell bent” on aquiring nuclear weapons?  Common sense says that she is.

While there are several more enrichment facilities that are in the planning stages, the U.S. has only a single operating commercial enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky, and this to support approximately one hundred nuclear reactors (some amount comes from Russian facilities).  Enrichment, whether via gaseous diffusion or centrifuges, is simply difficult.  The technology is complex, the maintenance is never ending, intricate and onerous, and the process is expensive.  There is absolutely no economic justification for starting and continuing the technology for doing it if it can be done in Russia or elsewhere.  Yet Iran wants enrichment, and the reason can only be nuclear weapons.

So if this is so, and if Gates [a] knows it to be true, but [b] warns against war and doesn’t give us any other choice, then have we not been impaled on the horns of a dilemma?  In fact, Gates has not mentioned the only truly viable option, i.e., regime change in Iran.

In IRack, Iraq and Iran, we observed “The opinions on Iran seem to hang around on the edges of the extreme.  Either have talks with them and hope to be successful without ever threatening military action, or go full bore into conventional operations against a uniformed army.  Each option is ugly.  The first will be unsuccessful, the second will be bloody.”

We then opined that the only real option is turnover of the Khamenei regime to democracy, that is, removal of the radical Mullahs from power.  There are any number of ways to be a catalyst for this change, from State Department support for democracy programs to fomenting an insurgency inside of Iran.

Whatever path or combination of paths is chosen, being on the horns of a dilemma calls for escaping the dilemma and pursuing something viable.  Gates should have at least pointed this out to his listeners.