The wrong way to fix Iran

The centralized regimes of Eastern Europe also maintained tight control over the media, so U.S. broadcasts and the covert distribution of information played a vital role in fostering democratic debate. Such measures will prove far less effective in Iran, where access to cellphones, the Internet and satellite TV is widespread. Although Iran does not have a free press, domestic debate is reasonably pluralistic.

The U.S. has a stake in Iran's internal power struggles, and the administration is right to want to undermine Iran's reactionary clerics. However, the best way to do so is to offer the Iranian people not radio broadcasts in Farsi but the realistic prospect of integration into the international community. Doing this gradually, starting with the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, the U.S. can encourage Tehran to embrace decentralization, accountability and transparency -- political practices that ultimately will bring down Ahmadinejad and his firebrand conservatives.

Moreover, Washington would be investing in a repository of goodwill within Iran, essential to nurturing a new generation of reformers that sees the U.S. as a prospective partner rather than the Great Satan. Coercive threats are needed to persuade Tehran to abandon its efforts to acquire the technology to produce nuclear weapons. But those threats must be accompanied by credible promises of political normalization should Tehran veer from its belligerent policies. Otherwise, only the hard-liners -- who rely on external demons and isolation from the international community to justify their monopoly on power -- benefit.

Eastern Europe's would-be democrats knew that the West was waiting for their countries with open arms, encouraging them to take the earliest opportunity to discard their repressive regimes. In a region still beset by deep distrust of American motives, Iran's progressives now need the same assurance.