作者：亨利·基辛格 2012年11月17日华盛顿邮报
亨利·基辛格在《华盛顿邮报》表示：「伊朗应是奥巴马总统的当务之急」。他說经过一场令人筋疲力尽的连任选战之后，美国总统奥巴马面临的最紧迫的问题是，如何阻止伊朗的军事核计划。两党的先后两位总统都一直宣称，为了实现这一目标，“没有什么选择是不可能的”。
Henry A. Kissinger：Iran must be President Obama’s immediate priority
By Henry A. Kissinger,
In the aftermath of an exhausting reelection campaign, the most urgent decision facing the president is how to stop Iran from pursuing a military nuclear program. Presidents of both parties have long declared that “no option is off the table” in securing this goal. In the third presidential debate, the candidates agreed that this was a matter of the American national interest, even as they described the objective alternately as preventing an Iranian “nuclear weapon” or “breakout capacity” (President Obama), or a “nuclear-capable Iran” (Mitt Romney). As Iran continues to elaborate its enrichment capacity and move it underground, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a spring deadline for counteraction. In this fraught environment, what operational meaning should be given to America’s declared objectives?
伊朗或成另一个朝鲜
随着伊朗的铀浓缩能力继续提高，并且将这些活动转入地下，以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡已经宣布，将以明年春季作为采取反击行动的最后期限。在这种情况下，应当赋予美国已经公布的目标怎样的实际意义呢？
文章称，美国和伊朗显然正在通过正式或半正式的使者进行双边谈判，抛弃了此前的多边会谈程序。关于伊朗核计划的谈判没有取得令人鼓舞的成绩。十几年来，伊朗先后让“欧盟三国”（法国、德国、英国）和“P5+1”（联合国安理会5个常任理事国加上德国）关于伊核问题的谈判陷入停滞。
伊朗的态度时软时硬，这取决于它是否正在扩大、隐藏或疏散其核设施。如果不对它进行任何限制，那么伊朗的技术进步将主宰事件的进展。但伊朗应在哪个阶段，以哪种方式被剥夺军事核能力？这一直是关于“红线”的讨论的核心。
一些人主张给禁止伊朗发展核武器画一条界线，但事实将证明，这是很难做到的。一旦伊朗生产出足够的可裂变材料，制造并装备核弹头将是相对不费时间、在技术上也很容易实现的过程，要及时发现这个过程几乎是不可能的。
文章认为，伊朗可能成为另一个朝鲜，拥有随时可能启动的军事核计划。每个拥有核选择的国家都将竞相缩短获得完全军事核能力的时间。“阿拉伯之春”所体现的改革主义倾向——这种倾向目前已经面临巨大压力——将被这一过程淹没。美国总统奥巴马对全球削减核武器进程的设想将遭受重创，或许是致命的打击。外交行动时间很紧迫
一些人认为，即使出现最坏的情况，也可以通过威慑制服拥有核武器的伊朗。文章认为，这种想法忽视了冷战时期威慑的巨大成本、复杂性和四处弥漫紧张气氛的事实，忽视了伊朗这个神权国家发出的灾难性预言，也忽视了如果伊朗拥有核武器，几个地区大国短期内将紧随其后成为有核国家的必然性。
如果核平衡是在以下情况下形成的，即冲突已经不再像冷战时那样仅限于双边冲突，牵扯其中的国家又都是事故预防能力仍处于起步阶段的发展中国家，那么出现互相动用核武器的可能性将大大增加。
文章说，这就是美国为何一直坚持限制伊朗的铀浓缩活动。随着伊朗的浓缩能力不断提高，其获得军事核能力的可能性越来越大，取得外交成果所剩下的时间也会越来越少。外交进程因此必须到达一个决策点。“P5+1”或美国单方必须拿出一个精确的计划，在具体的有限时间内减少伊朗的铀浓缩活动。
认真对待伊安全担忧
文章指出，战争还是和平的最终决定权应该还是掌握在美国总统奥巴马手中。为什么要和这样一个表现出如此敌意、总是让人捉摸不透的国家谈判？确切原因是，局势太令人担忧了。
外交手段或许能取得一个各方都认为可以接受的结果。或者，外交上的失败可以动员美国和全世界人民。这将使局势明朗起来，到底是引发一场不断升级的危机，直至军事施压，还是最终默许伊朗核计划的存在。不管哪种结局都要求对它的最终影响进行清楚的分析。
文章称，鉴于伊朗表示愿意承担作为一个民族国家的责任，而不是追求革命的宗教事业，并愿意接受可执行的核查，那么关于伊朗安全忧虑的一些因素就理应得到认真对待，包括在严格的浓缩限制得到实施和执行的情况下，逐步取消对该国的制裁。但时间紧迫。必须让伊朗明白，达不成协议的结果不是新一轮谈判，利用谈判来争取时间将导致严重后果。有创意的外交和坚决的战略或许仍可以防止危机，前提是美国在定义可接受的结果的过程中发挥决定性作用。
Henry A. Kissinger：Iran must be President Obama’s immediate priority
By Henry A. Kissinger,
In the aftermath of an exhausting reelection campaign, the most urgent decision facing the president is how to stop Iran from pursuing a military nuclear program. Presidents of both parties have long declared that “no option is off the table” in securing this goal. In the third presidential debate, the candidates agreed that this was a matter of the American national interest, even as they described the objective alternately as preventing an Iranian “nuclear weapon” or “breakout capacity” (President Obama), or a “nuclear-capable Iran” (Mitt Romney). As Iran continues to elaborate its enrichment capacity and move it underground, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a spring deadline for counteraction. In this fraught environment, what operational meaning should be given to America’s declared objectives?
The United States and Iran are apparently conducting bilateral negotiations through official or semiofficial emissaries — a departure from the previous procedure of multilateral talks. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program do not have an encouraging record. For more than a decade, Iran has stalled, first with the “EU-3” (France, Germany and Britain) and then with the “P5+1” (the members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany). It has alternated hints of flexibility with periods of intransigence, all while expanding, concealing and dispersing its nuclear facilities. If no limit is placed on this process, Iran’s technological progress will dominate events. But at what stage, and in what manner, should Iran be deprived of a military nuclear capability? This has been the essence of the argument over “red lines.”
Three stages are involved in the evolution of a military nuclear capability: a delivery system, a capacity to enrich uranium and the production of nuclear warheads. Iran has been augmenting the range and number of its missile systems since at least 2006. Its enrichment capacity — long underreported to the International Atomic Energy Agency — has been expanded to thousands of centrifuges (the instruments that enrich uranium to bomb-grade material). The level exceeds any reasonable definition of peaceful uses authorized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The inevitable culmination is a nuclear weapon.
To draw the line at proscribing an Iranian nuclear weapon — as some argue — would prove unmanageable. Once the requisite amount of fissile material has been produced, constructing and equipping a warhead is a relatively short and technologically straightforward process, almost certainly impossible to detect in a timely fashion.
If so ineffectual a red line were to emerge from a decade of diplomacy by the permanent members of the Security Council, the result would be an essentially uncontrollable military nuclear proliferation throughout a region roiled by revolution and sectarian blood-feuds. Iran would thereby achieve the status of North Korea, with a military nuclear program at the very edge of going operational. Each nation that has a nuclear option would compete to minimize the time to its own full military nuclear capability. Meanwhile, countries within the reach of Iran’s military but lacking a nuclear option would be driven to reorient their political alignment toward Tehran. The reformist tendencies in the Arab Spring — already under severe pressure — would be submerged by this process. The president’s vision of progress toward a global reduction of nuclear weapons would suffer a blow, perhaps a fatal one.
Some have argued that even in the worst-case scenario, a nuclear Iran could be deterred. Yet this ignores the immensely costly, complex and tension-ridden realities of Cold War-era deterrence, the apocalyptic strain in the Iranian theocracy and the near-certainty that several regional powers will go nuclear if Iran does. Once nuclear balances are forged in conditions where tensions are no longer purely bilateral, as in the Cold War, and in still-developing countries whose technology to prevent accidents is rudimentary, the likelihood of some nuclear exchange will mount dramatically.
This is why the United States has insisted on limits on Iranian enrichment — that is, curtailing access to a weapon’s precursor elements. Abandoning the original demand to banall enrichment, the P5+1 has explored what levels of production of fissile material are compatible with the peaceful uses authorized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The higher the level of enrichment, the shorter the time needed to bring about militarily applicable results. Conventional wisdom holds that the highest practically enforceable limit is 5 percent enrichment, and then only if all fissile material beyond an agreed amount is safeguarded outside Iran.
The time available for a diplomatic outcome shrinks in direct proportion as the Iranian enrichment capacity grows and a military nuclear capacity approaches. The diplomatic process must therefore be brought to a point of decision. The P5+1 or the United States unilaterally must put forward a precise program to curtail Iranian enrichment with specific time limits.
This does not imply a red line authorizing any country to go to war. However respectfully the views of friends are considered, the ultimate decision over peace or war must remain in the hands of the president. Why negotiate with a country of such demonstrated hostility and evasiveness? Precisely because the situation is so fraught. Diplomacy may reach an acceptable agreed outcome. Or its failure will mobilize the American people and the world. It will clarify either the causes of an escalating crisis, up to the level of military pressure, or ultimate acquiescence in an Iranian nuclear program. Either outcome will require a willingness to see it through to its ultimate implications. We cannot afford another strategic disaster.
To the extent that Iran shows willingness to conduct itself as a nation-state, rather than a revolutionary religious cause, and accepts enforceable verification, elements of Iranian security concerns should be taken seriously, including gradual easing of sanctions as strict limits on enrichment are implemented and enforced. But time will be urgent. Tehran must be made to understand that the alternative to an agreement is not simply a further period of negotiation and that using negotiations to gain time will have grave consequences. A creative diplomacy, allied to a determined strategy, may still be able to prevent a crisis provided the United States plays a decisive role in defining permissible outcomes.
