Strategic Assessment

The article surveys the components of the volatile situation in the Middle East and explores how some of the obstacles to resolving the Iranian challenge might be neutralized. Focusing on a role that NATO might play as a “partnership for peace,” the author urges a strategy of defusing, which can prevent Iran from attaining a huge strategic advantage of being the victim of an attack by Israel, and at the same time, changing the rules of the game in the Middle East so drastically that Iran’s expectations, power projection policies, and attrition strategy would require revision.