Major Lewis H. "Bucky" Burruss, operations officer for the Army's newly formed counterterrorism unit, Delta Force, outlined an improvised mission that went like this: Parachute a small force to a highway just east of Tehran that would hijack trucks right off the road, drive them into the city, attack the embassy compound and free the hostages, and then fight its way 400 miles to the Turkish border. It was tantamount to a suicide mission, for both the rescuers and the American hostages.

"Obviously," said Burruss, "we don't want to do this."

But this was the best the U.S. military could offer President Jimmy Carter on short notice. In the year and month that followed, many Americans were dismayed by Carter's seeming helplessness. How could the world's premiere superpower be trapped in a standoff with a scruffy band of Islamist college students?

Yet Carter had no military option short of escalating the standoff and almost certainly getting the hostages killed. America was superbly equipped in 1979 to rain missiles on an enemy, and to fight huge tank battles in Eastern Europe, but that was about it. When Carter warned Iran of a swift and harsh response if any hostages were harmed, he convened his generals at Camp David to explore his options if it came to that. He got a roomful of shrugs. After Vietnam, the cupboard had been stripped bare. According to James Kitfield's Prodigal Soldiers, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Edward "Shy" Meyer, told the president, "Basically what we have is a hollow Army."

Campaigning against Carter in 1980, Ronald Reagan lost no opportunity to portray his opponent as a timid leader, and to this day, critics of the former president argue that his biggest mistake was not hitting Iran hard and fast. Carter's perceived weakness, aggravated by the abject failure of a Delta rescue attempt he authorized six months later (only slightly less preposterous), is the biggest reason he lost his bid for a second term.

There is a thriving strain of political argument in American life that rests on an unrealistic belief in what force can accomplish. It played a big role in derailing Carter, and it will play a louder role in the coming months if Iran's defiance of nuclear nonproliferation agreements stiffens.

Without a doubt, the U.S. Army and military is "hollow" no more. It and the other branches may be overextended and stressed fighting two wars, but President Obama enjoys far better options than Carter did. If the choice is between striking Iran or letting it go nuclear, the president has a wide range of military tools.

But what can force accomplish against Iran's nuclear program? There is little doubt that we could set it back, maybe for years. But that would not eliminate the threat, and would almost certainly stiffen Iran's resolve to proceed. A successful strike would at best buy time, and at great cost.

Apart from certain retaliatory strikes against American forces in the region, against Israel, and within the United States by Iranian agents and its Hezbollah allies, a military strike would likely torpedo the courageous reform effort under way inside Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's summer electoral victory is widely regarded by his countrymen as fraudulent. Resistance there faces a tough crackdown but appears to be stubborn.

On the political front, time works in our favor. The mullahs have backed themselves into a corner. The harsher the repression, the more the regime discredits itself. The revolution in 1979 was not strictly or even fundamentally Islamist; it was a movement against authoritarianism. There remains in Iran a strong cultural yearning for freedom.

An American or Israeli military strike would solve the hard-liners' dilemma. It would accomplish what Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cannot. Just as a foreign attack on the United States instantly unites Americans of every political stripe against a common enemy, an attack on Iran would unify and rally that nation.

In the end, diplomacy, no matter how distasteful, proved the only way for Carter to end the crisis and bring the American hostages home safely. It is still the best option for dealing with Iran today. Obama is off to a good start. His friendly rhetoric and willingness to negotiate have significantly upped pressure on the mullah-ocracy. It has severely undercut its tired efforts to portray Uncle Sam as a boogeyman - indeed, Iranian reformers protesting in the streets have been heard chanting for Obama's help. The agreement reached with Iran's nuclear negotiators in October has placed Ahmadinejad in the curious position of supporting a compromise with the Great Satan over the objections of his own hard-line allies.

If that effort fails, the diplomatic approach has strengthened America's chances of imposing punitive economic sanctions. There is already broad support from Western democracies, and last week Russia indicated that it may join such an effort.

Obama was criticized in his campaign for his willingness to negotiate with Iran, even by his own Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was then opposing him for the Democratic nomination. But the point of talking was never founded on a belief that we could sweet-talk the mullahs of Qom. The point was to make Iran's malice and defiance more plain, in order to secure broad support for actions short of war.

It is good to be strong, but it is better to be smart.