Abbas Milani: The Shah, the Ayatollah and Iran's Nuclear Program

Below is video from the January 19, 2011, program at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. Dr. Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a visiting professor of political science.

Roxana Saberi: Inside -- and Out of -- an Iranian Prison

Writer (and former Miss North Dakota) Roxana Saberi went to Iran to work as a journalist and to study her family's history. Instead, she ended up sentenced to eight years in prison.

How did it happen? What did she see and learn when she was caught up in that country's legal system?

Saberi will discuss her experience later this month when she comes to The Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley April 21. Come hear what she has to say about Iran's notorious intelligence agency, that country's government and people, and how she fits into it.

More information.

Upcoming Club Speaker Kader Abdolah Serves as Regents Professor This Month

Writer Kader Abdolah already has a record of accomplishment that makes him someone worth our attention. A celebrated author who's been talked up as a potential Nobel Prize candidate, he has translated the Koran to make it more accessible to Western readers and his book The House of the Mosque is a European best-seller. (House and My Father's Notebook are both available in English.)

The Iranian-born Abdolah fled to Holland two decades ago seeking literary and political freedom. Bay Area audiences will be pleased to know that in April he is the Regents Professor in Dutch Studies at U.C. Berkeley.

You can meet Abdolah in person Friday, April 9, when he speaks to The Commonwealth Club of California in a noon program. For more information and to get tickets, visit our web site.

The event is underwritten by The Bernard Osher Foundation, and it is being held in association with the Consulate of the Netherlands.

"Climate Countdown" and "Inside Iran" to air on Comcast in Bay Area

For those of you in the Bay Area who are subscribers to Comcast, here's a heads-up about two upcoming Commonwealth Club programs that will be broadcast on Comcast cable channel 715:

• “Climate Countdown” with George Weyerhauser is scheduled to run Sunday, February 21, at 10p.m.
• “Inside Iran” with Robert Baer (the ex-CIA agent on whom George Clooney's character was based in the film Syriana) is scheduled to run Sunday, February 28 at 10 p.m. on Comcast cable channel 715.

Dr. Gloria Duffy to Discuss Nuclear Iran tomorrow on KCBS Radio (Bay Area)

Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy will discuss the situation with Iran's nuclear actions and policies tomorrow, October 1, on KCBS Radio, at 2:20 pm (Pacific Time). You can tune into 740 AM at that time or listen live on the KCBS news site.

Dr. Gloria Duffy: A Moment of Weakness for Ahmadinejad

Dr. Gloria Duffy, the Commonwealth Club's president and CEO, appeared on a television news report last night about experts' reactions to the Iranian nuclear and missile activity.

Duffy noted that the Obama administration might be sensing a period of weakness on the part of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad following the tumultuous post-election protests in that country. Others disagreed; former CIA agent (and former Commonwealth Club speaker) Robert Baer argued that the U.S., UK and France took a bad pre-negotiation step by embarrassing Iran when they revealed the country's previously little-known nuclear facility near the religious city of Qom.

View the KGO TV video for these and other views on the situation.

Dr. Gloria Duffy Discusses Iran's Nuclear Situation on KGO TV tonight at 6 p.m.

Commonwealth Club President and CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy will appear on KGO TV, Channel 7 in San Francisco, tonight at 6:00 p.m. (Pacific time). She will be discussing the nuclear situation in Iran.

Reza Aslan: No "Clash of Civilizations"

Reza Aslan at The Commonwealth Club, where he discussed Iranian-American identity and politics with journalist Jonathan Curiel on September 1. (Photo by Beth Byrne.)

Despite the high levels of religious identification by Americans, this country remains quite ignorant about -- and sometimes fearful of -- minority religions, especially Islam, scholar Reza Aslan told The Commonwealth Club last night. During a conversation with journalist Jonathan Curiel, Aslan said that someday, Americans will accept Muslims the same way they think of Catholics; but when John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960, he had to face public skepticism about whether his Roman Catholicism would entail him being more loyal to the Vatican than to the United States. Today, that accusation sounds laughable.

That attitude (and the hope embedded in it) are a good summary of Aslan's attitude toward the world's conflicts and the various intersections of religion and politics around the globe. In short, he said there is no "clash of civilizations," to use the phrase popularized by historian Samuel Huntington; he argued instead that the chief source of mistrust and misunderstanding was religious.

For a thoughtful and extensive overview of Aslan's program, read The Majlis report by Evan Hill.

For more about the Iranian-American experience, you might want to attend the upcoming event with popular author Firoozeh Dumas, who returns to The Club September 10. There's more event information here.

And on October 28, Haleh Esfandiari, founder and director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East Program, will discuss her time as a prisoner in Iran (a story she wrote about in her book, My Prison, My Home: One Woman's Story of Captivity in Iran). More on her event information here.

Iran Archive: Shirin Ebadi in 2006

(photo by Paul Eric Felder)

"Iran is a country of contradictions, but you need to be close to the land and live there to understand the contradictions," Shirin Ebadi told The Commonwealth Club of California on May 10, 2006. An Iranian human rights lawyer and the winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, Ebadi explained that her country has many laws that discriminate against women, yet "over 65 percent of students in universities in Iran are female." She added a note of hope by saying that "laws can change for the better."

In light of the ongoing demonstrations and anti-government protests in Iran that have led to a sharp government crackdown and a persistent split even among the country's religious establishment, Ebadi wouldn't likely be surprised by the heavy presence of women among the protesters. The government has paid attention, most recently arresting a prominent women's rights activist as she headed to the official Friday prayers today.

Ebadi's words still reflect the reality in Iran, though it remains to be seen how that reality will be changed by the events of the past few weeks. "In Iran, democracy is incomplete," she said. "The first step toward democracy is to allow people to elect whoever they want. We lack that freedom."

To get there, she called for greater political pressure -- but not economic or military pressure -- on Iran. In a visit to broadcaster Deutsche Welle's headquarters in Bonn, Germany, she said, "Diplomatic ties must not be severed; instead, the embassies could be downgraded to consulates. This would not harm the Iranian people, but it would illustrate the government's isolation."

To learn more about her thoughts on Iran and its relationship with the rest of the world, listen to the audio of Shirin Ebadi's 2006 Club speech, and audience Q&A, here.

Not a Kinder, Gentler Khamenei

Looks like Reza Aslan's sources might be wrong. Aslan, we noted yesterday, suggested that Friday's prayer message from Iran's leaders would be a reflection of whether attempts by opponents and reformers (not necessarily the same people) to forge a compromise were making headway. A softer tone in his Friday message would suggest the efforts were bearing fruit.

Well, the fruit is spoiled. The New York Times reports today:

At Friday Prayer in Tehran University, the senior cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami [not related to reformist former president Mohammad Khatami], referred to the demonstrators as rioters and declared, “I want the judiciary to punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson.” Reuters quoted him as saying that demonstrators should be tried for waging war against God. The punishment for such offenses under Islamic law is death, Reuters said.

This morning at a press conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Barack Obama repeated his condemnation of the violence against Iranian protestors. And he rejected the call for him to apologize to Iran, saying that he doesn't take Iranian President Ahmadinejad seriously when he makes such demands, and that Ahmadinejad should think more about apologizing to the families of the demonstrators who have been attacked.

Aslan will address The Commonwealth Club on September 1 in San Francisco.

Reza Aslan: A Deal in the Works in Iran?

There are reports of a deal forming in Iran that would end the current turmoil there, Reza Aslan writes on The Daily Beast today. He says that it's looking like there may be a run-off election between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. This is apparently the work of former president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who heads up the council that picks the supreme leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani has reportedly been in the religious center of Qum negotiating with other religious leaders in an attempt to put pressure on Khamenei and President Ahmedinejad.

Though the government's brutal crackdown has quieted things today in Tehran, Aslan says things are still raging in the provinces: "[D]espite the fact that protests in the capital city of Tehran have diminished, there are still reports of massive protests taking place in other parts of the country, including in Tabriz, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Mashad and Shiraz. These protests have been significantly smaller due to the brutal security crackdown, but they have also been much more forceful and violent."

He says that Khamenei's Friday prayers tomorrow should be a good indication of a softening of tone and therefore whether these reports of a compromise are real or not.

For some background, listen to this audio of Aslan's May 16, 2009, speech to The Commonwealth Club. And don' t miss his return engagement here when he comes to our San Francisco headquarters on September 1. See event and ticket information.

Firoozeh Dumas Stresses U.S.-Iranian History

Writer/humorist Firoozeh Dumas has written at length about the painful experience of being an Iranian immigrant in the United States after the beginning of the hostage crisis in Iran three decades ago. As American anger toward the revolutionary regime in Iran increased, Iranian-Americans found themselves dodging hostility from neighbors and strangers alike. It got to the point that when Dumas' mother was asked where she was from, she'd say without hesitating, "Turkey."

Dumas herself does more than her mother to try to bridge the differences between the two countries, and she -- like millions around the world -- is closely following the dramatic events in Iran. She does not, however, put herself on the side of those urging the United States to be like Europe and take a more combative public stance against Iran. She writes in a post on her blog:

Do I believe the election was rigged? Absolutely. Do I believe that Obama is doing the right thing by not getting more involved? Absolutely! Some of you have asked why [he] is not doing more. Here is a quick history lesson: In 1953, the CIA and the British staged a coup and ousted Iran’s only democratically elected leader Mohammd Mossadegh. Why did they do this? One word: oil. Mossadegh wanted to nationalize the oil industry which had been under British control. (This meant that oil was real cheap.)

That history is alluded to in the Iranian government's harsh response to the protesters, claiming Western interference in its internal affairs. But it's also possible that the current events will undo some of the automatic anti-Iranianism of some in the West and replace it with a growing respect for the bravery of the demonstrators.

Things certainly do appear to be changing. Dumas gave more context in her May 8, 2008, Commonwealth Club of California in Silicon Valley [watch the video], noting, "Over and over again, I see that stories that have to do with Iran tend to be frightening. I find that so upsetting.... Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, [Iran's] president, is not speaking on behalf of the Iranian people; he's speaking on behalf of himself." Now, perhaps moreso than ever.

The New Revolutionaries?

After about three decades in which western news audiences saw endless examples of Middle Eastern young people being used as fodder for religious wars, the current demonstrations in Iran might be pointing to a change. Blogger Steve Clemons presents some information that the young generation of Iranians is indeed full of trouble-makers -- but trouble-makers who favor democracy and an end to the reign of hard-liners and their militias.

Meanwhile, we provide some more background on Iran's domestic and international politics. Scholar and former Soviet diplomat Ismail Agayev spoke to The Commonwealth Club of California in February of this year. Watch the video for his views about how Iranians are viewing with the world.

Flashback: Farah Pahlavi, Widow of Shah of Iran

See the above BBC News video for a dramatic example of the widespread expressions of support for the Iranian demonstrations against the recent presidential elections. Today, those demonstrations are continuing, focused on mourning for the protestors killed in earlier demonstrations and on showing support for the reformist campaign in the country.

Some people have been expecting such an uprising for many years. On March 15, 2004, The Commonwealth Club of California hosted a program featuring Farah Pahlavi, the widow of the Shah of Iran. Before a packed auditorium, she engaged in an extensive conversation with Mary Bitterman, then the director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes and currently president of the Osher Foundation and vice chair of The Commonwealth Club's Board of Governors. Much of their discussion concerned her family's time in power and her personal adjustment to the revolution that brought the current Iranian government to power, but she also spoke about her belief that Iranians wanted more freedom and a better economy, themes that are being repeated these days as the protests in Tehran and other Iranian cities continue despite a government attempt to silence journalists covering the demonstrations.


Here were some of her thoughts in 2004:

I don't want to predict, because one cannot know, but from what I hear from the Iranian insiders, I have said that the majority of them are unhappy. They want change, because when you see the state of the economy – a country which was going forward…. To just give you an example, if one dollar was 70 rials 25 years ago; today it is 8,000 rials. The per capita income that was $2,500 25 years ago, now is around $1,000 and maybe less. And also the situation of young people who want freedom, who want the chance to work, to own a house, to be free like all the people in the world; so many young people are addicted, because they have no hope. The condition of women and so many young girls, who unfortunately, because of poverty, are forced to go into prostitution; and so many children beggars in the street. Also the respect of Iran in the family of nations, the environment, the corruption which exists – all that is making the Iranian people very unhappy. But I hope, again, with the effort of all Iranians and also with the support of the free world to support these freedom-loving people of Iran, Iran will gain its freedom and especially keep its territorial integrity. But we just cannot hope and dream, but we have to, all of us, have our part in trying to help in that direction.

You can read the complete transcript of the event here; there are also links to audio of the program.

Iran Back in the Headlines

In the video above, the UK's Channel 4 News reports on the past couple days' developments in the fascinating struggle going on in Iran over its recent presidential election. As you can see from the video, news is getting out of that country, despite strict controls the government there placed on foreign journalists after the election (such as forbidding them from leaving their office to report or photograph demonstrations).

It is obviously far too early to know where this will all head. While people hope for a peaceful outcome, the power lies in the hands of ideological religious militias and an unelected clerical leadership. Still, the reports are interesting to watch.

While you await more complete reports on the goings-on in Iran, after (one hopes) the journalistic restrictions are rescinded, you might want to view some of these videos of Commonwealth Club speakers who talk about Iran, its people, culture, politics, military, and more.

First, author and journalist Azadeh Moaveni has lived and reported in Tehran since 1999, and she spoke February 25, 2009, about private life in Iran.



Author and former CIA agent Robert Baer (the man on whom George Clooney's character was based in the movie Siriana) spoke about "Iran's Grip on America's Future" in a November 5, 2008, speech to The Club:



Iranian-born author Firoozeh Dumas talked about her life as an Iranian-American during a May 8, 2008, Club appearance:



And there are many more. Watch travel writer Rick Steves discuss his recent trip to meet the people of Iran. Abbas Milani and Barbara Slavin peeked inside Iran.

Firoozeh Dumas in the News

Firoozeh Dumas does not seem to be a controversial person. The Iranian-born, Southern California-raised author (Funny in Farsi, Laughing Without an Accent>) specializes in humorous and touching stories about her childhood, youth, and her extended family (but especially her parents). So why did someone make bomb threats at a book discussion she held at a California University?

On March 24, Dumas spoke about her books at the University of Southern California. Her talk followed the screening of the animated film, "Persepolis," which is based on a graphic novel about an independent girl's upbringing in Iran after the revolution. The events were subjected to increased security, including searches and scans of attendees, according to the USC student newspaper, the Daily Trojan. Luckily, the evening took place as planned.

The Trojan reports that the police didn't know anything specific about the threats, which apparently weren't aimed at any specific individual or building. Was it someone who was upset that two Iran-themed events took place on the campus? Or was it someone who was upset that the two events both featured independent Iranian (or Iranian-American) women?

We may never know the answer to that. But we will be hearing more about Dumas' family, thanks to ABC TV. A situation comedy pilot is in the works for that network; if it passes muster, a regular series will be in our future.

Until that time, you can get a taste of Dumas' humor and her message by watching the video below. Dumas spoke to The Commonwealth Club's Silicon Valley audiences on May 5, 2008, about the "Adventures of an Iranian American."

Dumas also moderated the audience question and answer session at the end of travel host Rick Steves' January 26, 2009, Commonwealth Club program about his recent travel to Iran. You can see that video here.

U.S., Russia Push 'Reset' Button; Distrust Remains

While most of the industrialized world prepares to fix the world's economy next week in London, an important geopolitical sideshow will be taking place when the U.S. and Russia discuss an old Cold War sticking point.

With the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) due to expire this December, old diplomatic ploys and negotiations are returning to the table while both sides have retained suspicions of each other's intentions. Back in 1982, President Reagan presented the then-Soviet Union with an offer to reduce the number of strategic nuclear weapons pointed at each other. The beginnings of the START suffered many starts and stops during the 1980s. The treaty was not signed until 1991.

The Bush Administration's announcement late last year to install weapons interceptors in Poland and radar capabilities in the Czech Republic -- two former members of the Iron Curtain -- is reminiscent of an earlier tactic engineered in 1983 when Reagan announced plans for a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as "Star Wars". The Soviets perceived it as a threat, even though the plan's feasibility and cost was widely questioned. The presence of SDI and, in hindsight, last-ditch efforts by the dying Soviet empire to show strength were a few of the reasons the agreement took nine years to ratify.

The other piece to the puzzle, then as it is now, is growing Russian insecurity over its Central Asian border, namely Afghanistan and Iran. The Obama Administration deftly linked missile defenses in Eastern Europe with the need to limit Iran's growing nuclear capabilities. A not-so-secret letter between Obama and Medvedev laid out this tit-for-tat reasoning that U.S. missiles in Poland would not be needed with a nuclear-neutered Iran.

Columbia University Political Science Professor Robert Legvold told the Voice of America that while Russia and Iran have strong commercial ties, he believes they have limited power in persuading the Iranians politically.

If the route chosen by the United States and Europe is to try to increase the pressure of sanctions, particularly in terms of petroleum and the export of refined petroleum products to Iran, then Russia would become crucial in that respect. But it's not clear that even tougher sanctions with everybody participating will force Iran's hand. So I think at the end of the day, there's a limit to how much the Russians can do in shaping Iran's choice.

Whether Russia has any real influence over Iran is also clouded by the suggestion that the U.S. and its NATO partners are unlikely to bargain with Russia at the expense of the Cold War organization's solidarity. During a meeting yesterday with the general-secretary of NATO, Obama said as much and reiterated support for former Russian satellites of Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO in the future -- a topic already infuriating the Kremlin.

U.S.-Russian relations as it relates to Afghanistan will also take prominence during the April 1 summit. Legvold, who with Stanford professor Coit Blacker will discuss U.S.-Russian relations with The Commonwealth Club's CEO Gloria Duffy this Monday, said Russian's attitude towards Afghanistan has been inconsistent.

They clearly are uncomfortable with a NATO and a U.S. military presence in Central Asia. But I think they genuinely are concerned about failure in Afghanistan, which would allow the Taliban back into power and create potential instability in Central Asia, which is their southern front. So we will have to see where they go in the longer run. But right now they have not been as helpful as they could have been, even if you put the best face on it.

The problem today may not be nuclear war between the one-time super rivals, but a consensus of how post-Cold War Europe and Central Asia should be divided. Both sides seem committesd to renewing START on the basis of nuclear warheads as deterrents rather than vehicle of threats. The question is whether both sides can reconcile their differences with the common need to quell instability in the Middle East.

Columbia University professor Robert Legvold and Director and Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Relations Coit Blacker will discuss U.S.-Russian relations with CEO Gloria Duffy Monday at The Commonwealth Club of California at 6 p.m. Click here for more program information.

Central Asian Expert: U.S. Needs to Allow Iran, Others into the Afghan Question

President Barack Obama needs to give Iran assurances that the U.S. will not use Afghanistan to undermine the Iranian government, in exchange for assistance in the region, according to noted author Ahmed Rashid.

“You need Iran on every front, whatever you are talking about. Whether it is military, Taliban, terrorism or economics,” Rashid told a noon-time gathering at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco today. “I think Iran is looking for that kind of minimum security for itself and Afghanistan. I think this is a big issue. It will obviously be opposed by the conservatives in the United States, but it needs to be done.”

Rashid, the author of the best-selling book, Taliban, which became the leading publication on the subject after 9/11, is promoting his current work, Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, which chronicles the missteps and possible ramifications of further instability in the region.

One way the U.S. can begin to soothe the region, according to Rashid, is by reaching out diplomatically to the Iranians. "Obama needs to make private or public assurances to the Iranians that they will not use Afghan soil to undermine Iran like the Bush administration did or to seek regime change in Tehran through Afghanistan," said Rashid, adding that the U.S. must also assure all players in the region that it is not seeking permanent military bases in the future. “I don’t believe the Americans want to stay in Afghanistan just as much as they want to stay in Iraq and that is precisely why Obama was voted in to get out of Iraq,” he said.

Rashid also said the other regional powers, Russia and China, must be allowed to join the conversation because of interests in their border security, economic issues and the presence of Islamic extremism in both countries.

The issue of how President Obama will be able to sell the re-introduction of war in Afghanistan to the American people will be a complicated endeavor, yet Rashid believes it to be paramount to the success of any involvement in Central Asia.

“It’s going to be very difficult to sell a commitment to Afghanistan, but I think it is absolutely critical," he said, "It’s critical for your own homeland security. It’s critical for Europe -- for the fact that al Qaeda has spread there. It’s critical also because of the nuclear factor: Pakistan is a nuclear power and no one can afford for Pakistan to meltdown. And, finally, it’s really critical to stop the expansion of al Qaeda before these local jihadi groups become more organized and more of a part of this global jihad."

Rashid found little to argue with in the president's announcement last month of the addition of 17,000 troops into Afghanistan while looking at it in a practical sense. “You cannot talk to the Taliban from a position of weakness, and right now the U.S. is losing the war in Afghanistan," he said. "You have the president, who himself said the U.S. is not winning, which is a polite way of saying that the U.S. is losing.”

Dennis Ross' Iranian Challenge

Dennis Ross' recent appointment as special envoy to the Gulf and Southwest Asia got a relatively quiet rollout, certainly compared to the high-profile photo-ops with the president, vice president, and the secretary of state when they rolled out special envoys to the Middle East and Afghanistan. That comparison has reflected a degree of confusion about Ross' mandate and authority, writes Michael Crowley in The New Republic.

Crowley cites critics and supporters of Ross -- a veteran of Republican and Democratic administrations going back to the Reagan administration -- who question his ability to deal with Iran, even his depth of understanding of Iran.

He may not have included Iran in an extensive book on the Middle East peace process, as Crowley notes, but he does have a public track record on Iran, such as this essay he wrote for Newsweek magazine in November 2008, called "Iran: Talk Tough with Tehran."

You can get a more extensive idea of what's driving our envoy to Iran and its neighbors by watching the video below from his June 27, 2007, speech and question-and-answer session at The Commonwealth Club. It's clear that he has a challenging job, but his public track record is worth examining.

Sanger: Iran Is a 'Few Screwdriver Turns' from the Bomb

In David E. Sanger's new book, The Inheritance, the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times writes, "the Iranians may be so close to a bomb -- a few screwdriver turns away -- that there is no hope of stopping the country from becoming nuclear capable."

In yesterday's Times, Sanger and William Broad reported the Iranians have created "more than a ton" of enriched uranium -- a third more than previously known, which the article cites as enough to build an atomic bomb. If the Iranians now have sufficient amount of enriched uranium, Sanger's assessment is proving quite prescient.

In the book, Sanger also writes Olli Heinonen, the International Atomic Energy Agency's chief inspector, saw 2008 as a "breakthrough year" for Iranian uranium enrichment capabilities. 

The summer before, Heinonen had predicted that by the end of 2008 the Iranians would likely be running upward of 4,000 of the high-speed machines [centrifuges] -- enough to make a bomb's worth of uranium in a year's time if they choose to enrich to bomb-grade purity. His prediction proved just about right.

While the new Obama administration has indicated its willingness to talk to Iran, the increased likelihood of a nuclear Iran could change some opinions in Washington, possibly allowing some hawkish members of Congress to revert to the previous administration's stated intentions to disrupt at any costs -- through sanctions or military action -- Iranian designs on creating a nuclear bomb.

The Bush administration had contemplated military airstrikes against Iran publicly since 2006, but Sanger reports in his book that the consensus for success was lacking. "Military experts who have studied the options say an airstrike could be devastating," writes Sanger, but also that it would not be quick. He quotes a former head of intelligence for the Middle East and the Defense Intelligence Agency as saying, "You are talking about something in the neighborhood of a thousand strike sorties and it would take all kinds of stuff -- air, cruise missiles, multiple airstrikes -- to make sure you've got it all." Some estimates, according to Sanger, have such a campaign lasting a week or two and making U.S. interests in the region vulnerable to attack from Hamas and Hezbollah.

Iran may have the enough nuclear materials, but they do not yet have a bomb. It is quite possible that the mullahs and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may not seek the actually warhead but merely seek what Sanger calls "a virtual bomb".

In the Second Nuclear Age, countries don't need to compile huge stockpiles of the sort that the Americans and Soviets amassed during the Cold War. All they need is a "virtual bomb," a credible capacity to build one in a few months and credible willingness to do so.

It appears the Iranians have achieved both points. How will President Obama react to this new nuclear paradigm?

Chief Washington Correspondent for The New York Times, David E. Sanger will discuss the challenges President Obama faces from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea and China at The Commonwealth Club of California Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 6 p.m.