Published in the Ottawa Citizen, November 25, 2012

Iran was an issue in the U.S. election. Now that he has won, President Barack Obama has to decide what to do about it. There are no good options.

Beyond the rhetoric over the need for a rapid attack, much of it coming, until recently, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his friends, the U.S. intelligence community remains of the view that Iran has not yet made the fateful decision to build a bomb. But Iran is getting closer to a weapons capability. This cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.

So what is likely in the first few months of Obama’s second term? Probably not an attack. Obama still seems to believe (rightly) that sanctions have more time to work. Make no mistake; the sanctions are having a huge impact, particularly in combination with Iran’s own poor economic performance and its chronic corruption. Iran’s currency is in free-fall and it is finding it more and more difficult to sell its oil….

Read the rest of this article on the Ottawa Citizen website.

Watch the video of the related CIPS event (CPAC).