Iran

As President Bush was prodding Iran to swiftly accept a U.S.-backed package of incentives to give up its nuclear ambitions, America's top military leader in Iraq was blaming Tehran for an increase in insurgent attacks that target Americans and Iraqis. The report last week by Gen. George W. Casey Jr. was a sobering reminder of Iran's duplicitous dealings with the West and another reason why the nuclear standoff with Tehran must be settled. While initially upbeat about the incentive package, Iran has yet to formally respond.

Iran will not be welcome back into the community of nations so long as it places an assassination contract on the head of a British citizen in Britain. This heinous act casts doubt on Iran's readiness to live by international rules, including respect for the sovereignty of other nations.Iran's Chief Justice Morteza Moqtadaei reiterated the 1989 death decree by the late spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on the Indian-born, lapsed-Muslim, British author, Salman Rushdie, as the duty of every Muslim to carry out. An Iranian "charity" has an outstanding offer of $2 million to the murderer.

Iran is using the crisis over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait to end its own isolation and strengthen its own position. A country with so many self-induced problems could hardly be expected to act otherwise. Iran is not on Iraq's side, or against Iraq, but for itself.First Iraq sought peace with Iran, accepting Iran's terms for the end of their eight-year war, in order to release Iraqi troops to face U.S. and Saudi forces to the south. That was welcome to Iran, allowing it to end its own isolation, retrieve prisoners-of-war and win the dictator Saddam Hussein's recognition of the border, including Iranian sovereignty over the whole Shatt-al-Arab waterway.

Atlanta -- Common sense has always been in short supply in the Clinton administration's formulation of foreign policy, and nowhere is this more evident than in its new policy toward Iran. Oblivious of the realities of nuclear proliferation and of change inside Iran, the administration has embarked on a futile attempt to isolate an Iran whose capacity and will to threaten vital Western interests it has grossly inflated.In April, after declaring Iran an outlaw state steeped in terrorism and lust for nuclear weapons, the administration imposed a full trade embargo on it and urged U.S. allies to follow suit.

A unilateral American military attack on Iran would cause incalculable harm to the United States. It would leave the U.S. isolated among the world's nations, it would expose American troops to far greater violence, and it would lay the groundwork for a severe constitutional crisis between the executive branch and an aroused Congress. Any sensible person can see that, yet the Bush administration seems intent on provoking Iran, with hostile rhetoric, the assignment of an aircraft carrier group to the waters near Iran, and - as reported Friday by The Washington Post - a new policy of killing Iranian agents found to be aiding militias in Iraq.

When the Bush administration offered this week to talk directly with Iran over Tehran's refusal to abandon its nuclear program, it renewed a chance to settle this matter peacefully. The U.S. involvement also helped forge a strong new package of incentives that has the support of the major international players, including China and Russia. That should get Iran's attention. The invitation to talk comes with a condition - the Iranians must halt all nuclear activity - that the Iranians can't cavalierly dismiss.

WASHINGTON - After much consideration, the Bush administration has finally opted for a strategy to deal with Iran's nuclear aspirations. As with its predecessor, the Bush team seems to hope that prodding Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into pressuring Iran can obstruct Tehran's proliferation tendencies. While this approach had merit in the 1990s, it's unlikely to work today. On the surface, Washington's recent diplomatic maneuvers may seem promising. An IAEA report notes that Iran has failed to abide by its treaty obligations in not accounting for the uranium that it obtained from China in 1991.

As the United States and its European allies rallied yesterday behind a U.N. resolution that could lead to sanctions against Iran, Tehran was busy enriching uranium, heralding its efforts and upping its threats. The Iranians don't seem the least bit fazed by the tough talk of U.S. officials and others who demand that Tehran shut down its nuclear program or face mandatory economic and diplomatic sanctions. And why should they be? For sanctions to be effective, the U.S. needs the support of U.N. Security Council members Russia and China, and neither has been willing to go that far. But the council can't simply ignore Tehran's defiance of its call to stop nuclear activities.

Economic warfare rarely works as intended. President Clinton may not expect his boycott of trade and investment with Iran to modify that country's international conduct. As an executive order, it has the virtue of heading off legislation to the same effect sponsored by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., which would be more rigid.The behavior of Iran that the president wants modified is crystal clear. Administration spokesmen have spelled it out, sometimes varying the order, but never the content: (1)