Can the U.S. dissuade Iran from building a nuclear weapon without having to resort to the use of military force?

American presidents have a mixed record of success in the post-World War II world of influencing the decision making of our adversaries and avoiding war. Where they have succeeded—the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is the prime example—it was because they were prepared to use the full force of American power; and the adversary had no doubt that they would do so.

When it comes to Iran, Israel’s threat to use unilateral force complicates U.S. decision making, but it should not prevent Washington from taking the lead and doing what is necessary.

According to The Washington Post “Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has said believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June—before Iran enters what Israelis described as a ‘zone of immunity’ (when an attack would be ineffective) to commence building a nuclear bomb. Very soon, the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon—and only the United States could then stop them militarily.”

Secretary Panetta’s statement is troubling because it takes public what has been ongoing in private for months—the Obama administration’s attempts to dissuade Israel from launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear program, believing sanctions need more time to work. It also suggests that the Obama administration wants to signal Iran that if it cannot dissuade Israel, the U.S. will not become involved in an Israel-Iran conflict unless Iran attacks U.S. interests; which suggests that the U.S. is unlikely to take military action on its own.

This sends precisely the wrong message to Iran and fails to appreciate the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis when President John Kennedy’s showdown with the Soviet Union over medium and intermediate range nuclear missiles in Cuba forced Moscow to withdraw them and averted a nuclear war.

Library shelves are packed with studies and analyses of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They are full of theories about “rational actor,” “organizational process,” and “bureaucratic politics” models for understanding how decisions were reached on both sides. As President Kennedy himself observed, however, "The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer—often, indeed, to the decider himself."

What is undeniable is that President Kennedy was guided by his core beliefs and his world view. He was inexperienced in international affairs, but as a World War II veteran he understood when it was necessary to draw the line and had the right instincts on how to do so. Soviet decision makers understood that President Kennedy wasn’t bluffing and nothing short of the ultimate annihilation of the Soviet Union was as stake.

The challenge for President Obama, as it was for President Kennedy, is to take decisive steps that will convince Iran that the cost of going forward with its nuclear weapons program would be unacceptable to them.

Both the U.S. and Israel have turned up the heat on Iran. Israel is widely credited with covert activities such as the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, the Stuxnet virus that setback Iranian uranium enrichment activities and sabotage attacks at key Iranian weapons facilities. The U.S. along with its European allies is putting in place stricter sanctions, to include those on Iran’s central bank and its oil exports. Israel threatens Iran with limited military action to prevent them from becoming a nuclear-weapons state. The U.S. insists all options are on the table. But is all this enough? As all the U.S. intelligence chiefs recently testified before Congress, Iran remains undeterred—principally because they doubt U.S. resolve.

To be sure, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other Iranian theocratic decision makers have a decision-making calculus different than their counterparts in the old Soviet Union. No one is talking about escalation to a nuclear conflict, at least not before Iran acquires nuclear weapons and delivery systems; and it’s difficult to know what they are willing to sacrifice in the broader interests of Islam and the will of Allah.

Drawing parallels to the Cuban Missile Crisis, however, is not without merit. What persuaded the Soviets, and what likely will persuade the Iranians, if anything, is a clear and unambiguous ultimatum that the U.S. will not rely on a limited Israeli military attack or launch a limited military attack of its own. It will take whatever level of military action is necessary, including the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities, to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program and its ability to retaliate. U.S. ground forces are overextended and "boots on the ground" need not be part of that equation. The balance of U.S. air and naval forces provide the U.S. with a decisive edge. President Obama must convince Iranian leaders that their nuclear aspirations would be thwarted, their military capabilities severely devastated, and that the regime itself may not survive.

The last thing President Kennedy wanted was a war with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Politburo, however, had absolutely no doubt that had they not turned around ships carrying nuclear missiles to Cuba, Kennedy was prepared for U.S. forces to stop, board, and turn them around. That likely would have led to a military confrontation that easily could have resulted in a nuclear war; and, at the time, the balance of nuclear forces was decidedly in the U.S. favor.

The last thing any U.S. President wants is a war with Iran. But unless the President of the United States is willing to take overwhelming military action in Iran, and he can convince Iran that he will do so, the U.S. is unlikely to deter Iran from making its fateful decision. Waiting until after Israel launches an attack on Iran—and have no doubt that it will if Iran does not change course—would be a grave mistake. It would drag the U.S. into the war it sought to avoid; and could fail to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state.

The stakes could not be higher. A nuclear armed Iran would have devastating consequences for world peace and stability and for America’s role as leader of the free world. Only if the U.S. is prepared to go to war can it hope to avoid one.