The View From Here . . .
By Bob Morgan, Jr.

The visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the United Nations points up the difficult choices and dilemmas that the United States faces in dealing with Iran.

Of course, President Ahmadinejad's appearance in itself touched off a stormy debate. The Iranian first announced an intention to visit Ground Zero, which was basically rebuffed by New York City officials. It would be hard to imagine a more inappropriate place to go for an avowed enemy of the United States. Then he managed to snare an invitation to speak at Columbia University (my undergraduate alma mater, for what it's worth), which was highly controversial and condemned both by politicians and editorialists.

I am still not sure that the decision to invite Mr. Ahmadinejad to the campus was the right one, and it certainly did not help when a Columbia dean stated that the University would have invited Adolf Hitler. Nevertheless, Columbia President Lee Bollinger pretty much saved the day by telling Mr. Ahmadinejad that he "resembled a petty and cruel dictator" and personally posing a series of tough questions, including questions relating to President Ahmadinejad's denial or skepticism of the Holocaust. While Mr. Ah-madinejad not unexpectedly did not answer the specifics of the questions, it was apparent to all that he was not being candid with his audience. A particularly striking example of this obfuscation occurred when he denied the existence of homosexuals in his coun-try.

Perhaps President Bush had the most reasonable view of the visit to Morningside Heights: "I'm not so sure I'd offer the same invitation, but nevertheless, it speaks volumes about the greatness, really, of America... if the president (of Columbia) thinks it's a good idea to have the leader from Iran come and talk to the students as an educational experience, I guess it's OK with me."

But what of the substance of our relationship with Iran, a country with a repressive regime that is threatening to build nuclear weapons and is believed to be supporting insurgents who target United States troops?

At the outset, I must say that Iran is probably not a situation for which military force is the appropriate response. Iran has 60 million people, twice the number of Iraq, and a large and well equipped army of approximately 350,000 soldiers, and is rich in oil. As the war in Iraq has proven, military expeditions can have many unexpected and unforeseen consequences and hazards. And simply launching a bombing campaign would seem unlikely to bring about regime change, while inflaming world (and in particular Islamic) opinion. Even if Iran ends up with a credible nuclear weapons threat, this may be a situation that we have to live with.

One possible way for the United States to gain influence would be by covert alliances with internal opposition to the Ahmadinejad government. It is not particularly clear that the opposition is powerful enough to triumph in the short run, but the country has a large and growing middle class who are likely very unhappy with strict rule by the mullahs.

However, this may be an area where we do need to work with our allies, fickle as they often can be. For example, the new French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, is considerably better disposed to work with the United States than was his predecessor, and has ex-pressed a desire to confront Iran over its nuclear ambitions. Obviously sanctions and diplomacy have their limitations. However, at least in this instance, as Winston Churchill noted, jaw-jaw is better than war-war.