Over at TPM Cafe, Ivo Daalder and Phil Gordon have one of the most sensible takes I've seen on how to handle Iran. Pay particular attention to their willingness to face Tehran's threat to pull their oil supplies off the market. That the potential rise in crude costs is seen as such a determinative factor reflects how fundamentally unseriously we really are about punishing Tehran -- we can't even bear the thought that confronting a reckless regime might entail some broad-based economic sacrifice. It's also final evidence that our thirst for foreign fuel constricts our geopolitical options, sometimes dangerously so. The question, of course, is whether we could convince Russia, China, and others to accept oil sanctions on Iran. If so, the rise in prices would be temporary, as the country's total economic collapse would either topple the regime or move the anxious clerical establishment to chain down Ahmadinejad. As such, this is one of those moments when it would've come in handy to have not spent the last five years squandering our moral authority and diplomatic goodwill.
