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Washington is confronted by a number of policy issues relating to Iran, most prominently Tehran's nuclear program and the country's role in the region. There is no good US policy fix for dealing with the situation, but the regular invocation by Washington of a military option as a possible solution is not helpful in that an attack on Iran would not resolve any problems in the bilateral relationship and could well make the situation much worse. Negotiations offer the best option, but their success depends on a mutual willingness to compromise on fundamental issues, which has not hitherto been the case. A policy of containment could accept that Tehran might aspire to a weapon and regional hegemony while devising strategies to mitigate and control the threat resulting from those developments. There are flaws in every possible approach, and there is no good policy option for dealing with Iran.

Despite more than thirty years of trying to collect significant information, the United States intelligence community is not well informed on many important questions relating to Iran. Decision-making by the Iranian government as well as its political alignments, capabilities, and intentions are poorly understood. Many intelligence professionals consider Iran to be the hardest intelligence target in the world. Solid intelligence does exist about the regime's nuclear program, as reported in the 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate. There is no evidence that Iran has decided to develop a nuclear weapon, but the decision to reactivate a weapons program could be made at any time.

Iran poses two fundamental challenges to the United States. First is its alleged program to develop a nuclear weapon, which is currently being negotiated and which might be managed and contained through concerted international action. Second, and more threatening in the long term, are its roles as a regional hegemon and as a participant in the political development of neighboring Iraq. Iran's policies in Iraq sometimes appear to be directly in conflict with US initiatives. In spite of considerable angry rhetoric, however, any actual evidence for Iranian hostile interaction in Iraq is highly speculative, and the White House has yet to make a case that Tehran's involvement is inappropriate or could serve as a casus belli.

The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 has resulted in a resurgence in Kurdish nationalism. There has also been a revival of the terrorist threat directed against Turkey coming from the Kurdistan Workers' Party based in northern Iraq. The inability of the United States to curb the terrorism problem and the increasing instability of the region as a whole have put pressure on the Turkish government to act decisively. Much of this pressure comes from secularists and the army itself, both of which criticize the ruling AK Party because of its failure to provide security. The decision whether to invade northern Iraq will depend on exactly how Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan chooses to respond to that pressure.

After noting the resilience of neoconservatism, attention is given to the neconservatives' presidential candidate Republican John McCain. Adapted from the source document.