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th a threatening regime while deterring its most dangerous moves. It worked. Nearly five decades later, more Americans wake up worried about our trillion-dollar debt to China than about China s arsenal. China has evolved into a comparatively manageable military competitor, at least for now. Today a version of the same debate about whether containment is the answer is breaking out again, this time about Iran. Prominent strategists like Zbigniew Brzezinski argue forcefully that what worked in the cold war will work with the mullahs. The cover of Foreign Affairs this month is an article titled After Iran Gets the Bomb ; it draws scenarios for dealing with what many believe is inevitable. Meanwhile, the administration races to add antimissile systems and a naval presence in the Gulf - an effort to contain Iran s power in the region, officials say, but it sure looks like the building blocks of a nuclear containment policy, a backup in case the next round of sanctions fails to do the trick. The White House denies that nuclear containment is on the table. The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, period, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said on his testy trip to Israel last week. But to many in the early 1960s, a nuclear China was also unthinkable. More recently, George W. Bush would regularly repeat that America would never tolerate a nuclear North Korea. The reality was that during the last six years of his presidency, he tolerated it, then prepared the way for the current containment strategy of intercepting shipments from North Korea to customers for its nuclear know-how. What is striking about the current debate about containing Iran is that neither side seems entirely confident in the solidity of its argument. Those who advocate sanctions acknowledge that three rounds enacted by the United Nations Security Council failed to change Iran s behavior. Even if the administration wins new sanctions aimed at the Revolutionary Guard, the advocates admit it will still be a long shot that Iran would hurt enough to stop enriching uranium. Those who argue that a military strike might be needed if sanctions fail have their own doubts. They admit they cannot predict Iran s response - from terror strikes to oil cutoffs to confrontations in the Strait of Hormuz. Even the administration seems tentative about when Iran will exceed American tolerance. In the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies, several senior officials complain - though never on the record - that President Obama and his staff have not clearly defined when Iran will gain a nuclear weapons capability. Many argue that similar indecision preceded the day in 2006 when Mr. Bush woke up to discover that North Korea had conducted a nuclear test. So what is the argument for containment? Basically, it assumes that if China and Russia changed over decades, so might Iran. And nuclear weapons can handcuff a nation as easily as they can empower it. Last week, at the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Brzezinski argued that either an Iranian bomb or an attack on Iran would be a calamity, a disaster. He said containment could work because Iran may be dangerous, assertive and duplicitous, but there is nothing in their history to suggest they are suicidal. Nevertheless, in their Foreign Affairs essay, James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh concede that the Iran case differs substantially from the cold war ones, and that a successful strategy today would have to recognize that fact. They urge Mr. Obama to prescribe three explicit no-go zones for the Iranians: no initiation of conventional warfare against another nation; no transfer of nuclear weapons, materials, or technologies ; no increase in support for terrorists. The penalty, they argued, would have to include military retaliation by any and all means necessary, including the use of nuclear weapons. It is a logical list. But there is a counterargument: Why would Iran believe the threat if the United States, having said it would never allow Iran to get a nuclear capability, then allowed it? In fact, the administration is deep into containment now - though it insists its increases in defensive power in the Gulf are meant to deter a conventional attack by Iran. If Iran

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