Dealing with a Nuclear Iran

In case you weren't paying attention, the world has learned that Iran now has a second uranium enrichment facility to supply the material for nuclear weapons.  And over the past few days, Iran has been flexing its muscles by test firing a variety of short and medium range missles. The tested missles could easily reach all of Israel, and some of the missles could even reach portions of southern Europe.

In a sane world, this news would be greeted by every sensible nation with alarm.  But the Obama Administration, along with the surrender monkeys of western Europe, have responded only with a promise of additional sanctions.  Well guess what:  sanctions have not worked before, and they will not work now.  Furthermore, the sanctions that are in place now are not even being enforced:  for example, our allies in Germany turn a blind eye when German industrial firms provide equipment to Iran that is necessary to make the nuclear program operate.  And Russia will render any additional sanctions meaningless by providing Iran with everything it needs.  The Iranian marketplace deposits lots of money into Medvedev and Putin's treasury.

So what happens now?  We can be certain that for the Obama Administration and NATO, a military response is absolutely out of the question.  Obama cannot even muster the strength to follow the recommendations of his commanding general in Afghanistan--a war that Obama called "necessary" during the campaign--because he is afraid of his "progressive" base.  And Obama's brand of "shame on you" diplomacy makes him the laughing stock of tyrants the world over.

The only nation that truly grasps the implications of the present situation is Israel.  In 1981, Israel launched an air strike that disabled Iraq's early efforts at a nuclear weapons program, and I do not doubt for a second that Israel is already formulating a plan for a pre-emptive strike against Iran.  Israel has to do it.  The Iranian regime is openly commited to a policy of destroying Israel--literally wiping it off the map.  I will make no prediction about when the strike will come, but come it will. 

I commend to you a great piece in today's Wall Street Journal by Eliot Cohen on the limited options left for dealing with a nuclear Iran.