“Drive-by diplomacy” won’t work for an Iran deal| The Economist

We've kind of boxed ourselves. in at this point. You can declare victory. and walk away, but. with the future. of the Strait of Hormuz. up in the air, it's kind of hard. to make that. a plausible option. You could escalate. and decide that. it's time to do everything. necessary to. change the regime, that's not very appealing. for all sorts of. obvious reasons. You can expand. the naval blockade, you can couple that. with airstrikes. against infrastructure. But that alone, I don't think, is going to cause.

this hard- bitten regime. to run up the white flag. And that. leaves the fourth option, which is to get more serious. which is to get more serious. about diplomacy, backed up. by the potential use. of force, or perhaps. even more use of force. You never get very far. in diplomacy. without that. kind of leverage, but also to approach it seriously. which means not. drive-by diplomacy. Even in the secret talks. with the Iranians. we were able to rely. on a pretty sophisticated. cadre of people who knew. those issues very well.

And then that led to. a year and a half. of overt talks. with literally hundreds. of people on both sides. And that finally produced. an agreement which... I would be the last person. to argue the. comprehensive [nuclear] agreement. in the Obama era. was a perfect agreement, but it was a. good enough agreement. It was a mistake. to bail out of that. in May of 2018, in the first Trump term. And I think any agreement. that emerges now. is going to bear an. eerie resemblance, at least. in terms of its basic structure,

to that agreement. But I think that's. the least bad of the choices. that can be pursued now. It'll be harder, I think, to get. the Iranian regime to export. 98% of its. stockpile of. enriched uranium, as was the case in the. Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement. But I think. you probably could, with painstaking effort, get them to agree to export. some and then dilute. or down-blend the rest. to a point where. if you coupled it with. intrusive inspections. and good intelligence.

from the United States. and Israel, I think. you could be fairly confident. you'd catch them. if they tried to break out. That leaves the issue. with the strait. where the Iranians, having discovered. the strategic advantage. that this provides, are going to fight tooth. and nail to hold on to it, if it's not a tollbooth, at least. some degree of control. I think. the obvious opportunity. would be to try to mobilise. lots of countries. who have a. stake in free passage. through the Strait of Hormuz, and try to use that to build.

pressure on the Iranians. And then maybe create. an international mechanism. in which the states. bordering the strait. would all have a part. You could generate. some revenue. to defray the costs. of demining. or environmental damage. But you deny the Iranians. an exclusive tollbooth.