Discussing the Iranian plot with the New York Times, an anonymous senior administration official (in the Bush administration, that meant the National Security Advisor or the Secretary of State) promised the Obama administration would send Iran a strong message. “’We’re going to work with allies and partners to send Iran a message: we don’t tolerate the targeting of foreign diplomats on our soil, said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.”
Obama and his advisers shouldn’t waste their breath: If the strongest message they send Iran after a plot to kill Americans and foreign diplomats in Washington is to beg and plead with Moscow and Beijing at the United Nations, then the leadership in Iran can rest secure.
If the Iranian regime is to understand there are redlines they cannot cross and plausible deniability is no longer a strategy they can embrace when it comes to their constituent parts, then the only response the Obama administration can take is biting economic sanctions against Iran’s central bank, or limited military actions such as the Reagan administration did during Operation Preying Mantis. Wars in the Middle East are caused not by oil or water, but rather by overconfidence. Both the Bush and Obama administrations enabled Iranian confidence. The only way there will be peace or at least stability is if the Iranian regime understands the costs of their actions are too great for them to bear.