Which is news to the IAEA, but not to everyone with any sense at all:

A draft report from the International Atomic Energy Agency warns that Iran may currently be working on secret nuclear warhead. This is the strongest language the IAEA has yet used to describe Iran’s nuclear weapons program:

“The information available to the agency is extensive, … broadly consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the time frame in which the activities were conducted and the people and organizations involved,” the report said.

“Altogether this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Give the fact that Iran has no need to have nuclear power, at all, the only possible reason for it is weapons. And if you’re going to build nukes, you need a way to deliver them to the target. Other than smuggling a bomb, a missile or a bomber is the only way.

And so…

Just re-stating the obvious:

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has directed enrichment of a portion of that country’s stockpile of uranium to 20 percent. Experts regard this as a significant step forward for Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The reaction of Defense Secretary Robert Gates seems significant:

At a news conference with French Defense Minister Herve Morin, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised President Barack Obama’s attempts to engage the Islamic Republic diplomatically and chided Tehran for not reciprocating.

“No U.S. president has reached out more sincerely, and frankly taken more political risk, in an effort to try to create an opening for engagement for Iran,” he said. “All these initiatives have been rejected.”

So Gates was, evidently, praising Obama for pursuing a policy that has been, by the Secretary’s own admission, a complete failure.

One has to feel sorry for Gates having to carry on with such levels of incompetence as we see in the Obama Administration. He’s doing the best he can and I’m grateful he’s there as at least it means we’ve got someone who will look after the troops. But one Gates cannot carry an entire Obama Administration – and while he’s loyal to his boss, it clear that our policy towards Iran has been a failure.

It is time to re-assess our goals and means of attaining them.

Are we really going to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? If so, then engagement and UN sanctions have to be set aside in favor of much stronger action – blockade backed by a threat of aerial bombardment of power, oil and nuclear sites.

Are we going to live with an Iranian nuclear force? If so, then we’d better start working out theater ballistic missile defense systems with Iraq, the Gulf States and others who will be under the Iranian gun. And then we’d better be prepared for a decades-long stand off punctuated by various flare ups of violence – and, of course, the prospect that the lunatics in Tehran will actually launch a nuclear war.

The one thing we can’t do is continue on as we are – Obama’s policy, as all liberal policies for dealing with rogue regimes, has been an utter failure. A failure, by the way, which everyone with any sense at all predicted. There never was a question that Iran’s government would respond to anything other than a mortal threat to its existence. Everyone knew this and knows this – except, of course, for President Obama and his Administration.

Time to start learning fast, Mr. President.

Seems our liberals in the Obama Administration have no clue about the current state of the world:

U.S. and Russian negotiators have reached an “agreement in principle” on a successor to the decades-old START treaty that expired last year, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

The deal would reduce the number of actively-deployed nuclear warheads from 2,200 to between 1,500 and 1,675, and the number of possible delivery vehicles — from missiles to submarines and bombers — would fall to between 700 and 800 per side.

“There may be finessing and fine-tuning, but the issues, from our perspective, are all addressed,” said Rose Gottemoeller, the Obama administration’s lead negotiator on the treaty.

The basic structure of the deal was reportedly approved last week during a phone conversation between President Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. The final drafting could take two months, officials said.

Why are we even doing this? START had its place in history – as a means of dealing with the old USSR and the over large stockpile of nuclear weapons we had built to confront that dead entity. Now things are different, and entering in to nuclear weapons agreements with Russia is as absurd as reviving the naval limitations treaty between the US, UK and Japan from the 1920’s. Why are liberals this obtuse?

What we need to be doing, now, is building (and testing) a new generation of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles to confront the rising challenge of China – and the prospect of a series of Third World dictatorships obtaining nuclear arsenals. Our efforts should be geared towards the means of having a first-strike capability against such nuclear forces coupled with the ability to defend ourselves against any response. But here we are, negotiating treaties with Russia as if its still 1986!

As I noted in Developing a New American Foreign Policy, it is time for us to discard the failed foreign policy of the past and build a policy which actually serves American interests. Writing up pointless agreements with Russia about nuclear weapons is stupid, foolhardy – in short, just what we could expect from an Administration stocked with liberals.

Of course, it was an idiotic premise to think they ever had:

U.S. intelligence agencies now suspect that Iran never halted work on its nuclear arms program in 2003, as stated in a national intelligence estimate made public three years ago, U.S. officials said.

Differences among analysts now focus on whether the country’s supreme leader has given or will soon give orders for full-scale production of nuclear weapons.

The new consensus emerging among analysts in the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community on Iran’s nuclear arms program is expected to be the highlight of a classified national intelligence estimate nearing completion that will replace the estimate issued in 2007.

It was clear that the 2007 report was put together by liberal moles in the intelligence community who wanted to undermine President Bush – it was laughable to think that the Mullahs would ever give up their dream of nuclear weapons. To the mullahs, nukes are the way to ensure that no matter how badly they provoke us, we’ll never attack for fear of a nuclear exchange. And if you think it over carefully, for the Mullahs basic geopolitical strategy requires nuclear weapons – that they are insane and shouldn’t do it doesn’t matter. You have to think of it from the lunatic’s point of view.

The problem is that now we’ve got a President who has already shown himself unwilling to offend our enemies. The plain fact of the matter is that only by taking a calculated risk of war can we prevent an Iranian nuclear force from becoming a reality – and while I don’t think actual war would eventuate, it is something which may happen, and thus we need a President who can grimly look that fact in the face, and still do the right thing. Obama doesn’t impress me as a man who can do this.

And that means that Israel, if it wishes to survive, will have to strike…could be a very nasty couple years coming up.

We told you so, liberals:

Iran angrily refused Sunday to comply with a demand by the United Nations nuclear agency to cease work on a once-secret nuclear fuel enrichment plant, and escalated the confrontation by declaring it would construct 10 more such plants.

The response to the demand came as Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said his cabinet would also order a study of what it would take for Iran to further enrich its existing stockpile of nuclear fuel for use in a medical reactor — rather than rely on Russia or another nation, as agreed to in an earlier tentative deal.

Cabals of corrupt lunatics are not amenable to logic and appeals to human decency. It wasn’t a guess that Iran’s government would take President Obama’s “engagement” and spit in his face; the only thing to guess was just how they would do it. Here’s how.

What you liberals fail to understand – quite amazingly as its common knowledge – is that when you want to “engage Iran”, you’re not engaging Iran. If we could get together with legitimate representatives of the Iranian people, we’d make great progress…but, then again, if the Iranian people had legitimate representatives, there would be no big issues to deal with (you’ll note that we don’t have a lot of war-threatening confrontations with Canada).

The problem is that there are no legitimate representatives of the Iranian people to deal with – we’re dealing with wicked men who do nasty things because they delight in being evil (and they know its evil – we are judged as we judge…and as the kooks running Iran don’t want an American to strap on a bomb and blow up their families in Tehran and as they don’t want America threatening to “wipe Iran off the map”; they know full well they shouldn’t be facilitating these things, and they do it any way).

Until we steel ourselves to the prospect (not the inevitability – the prospect) of war with Iran and take actions which use American power to force Iran to the negotiating table, this problem will just get worse. One day, perhaps soon, Iran will have built nuclear weapons unless we act to prevent them…and “act to prevent them” does not mean “engage them”. It means “confront them” and risk war in order to thwart their wicked designs. More than likely, it won’t come to war – but if we don’t have the threat of it at back of all we do with Iran, nothing we do will work.

I think we’ve all pretty much written off Obama’s asinine efforts to prevent Iranian nukes:

The West is “disappointed” over Iran’s failure to respond positively to a UN-brokered nuclear deal, diplomats said in a statement Friday following a meeting of the UN Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany. However, no new sanctions were discussed during the meeting, according to an EU source.

“We urge Iran to reconsider the opportunity offered by this agreement … and to engage seriously with us in dialogue and negotiations,” the statement said, noting that Teheran had not responded positively to the proposal of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Why should Iran re-consider? They are getting everything they want and there isn’t the slightest threat of action should Iran build and deploy nuclear weapons. Only Israel shows any willingness to fight Iran – and Israel is under intense US pressure to back down and back off.

So, Iran will get its nukes and become largely invulnerable to US pressure – and thus free to sponsor a new and stronger wave of terrorists attacks against Israel, the US and our other allies. With, of course, the continuing possibility that the lunatics in Tehran will launch a nuclear attack on Israel in a fit of messianic Islam-fascism.

Glad we got a cool, internationalist liberal in charge – imagine how much worse it would be if that cowboy Bush were still in office…

Excellent article in the WSJ about Israel’s increasing acceptance of the need for some sort of decisive action against Iran. Reading it, I got this question in my head: would Israel use nuclear weapons in a first strike?

Keep in mind that in 1967, Israel struck first at those who were gathering to strike Israel. It was a defensive war, but it opened with an Israeli offensive. And it was good that Israel took the step – the enemy wasn’t ready, got severely knocked off balance and the resultant Israeli land captures provided the tactical cushion Israel needed when the enemy tried again in 1973. The trouble is that with Iran, there is not much that conventional Israeli forces can do.

To be sure, the IDF can strike some mighty hard blows at both Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s ability to hit Israel. But it can’t eliminate the threat, not hit hard enough to convince the Iranian leadership to give up the quest for Israel’s destruction. But the stakes are just as high as they were in 1967 – what is gathering is an existential threat to Israel’s existence. What is gathering is the threat of a second Holocaust.

Two or three nuclear weapons exploded over Israel at the right altitude would pretty much destroy the whole nation (its a very tiny place) and leave the survivors defenseless against Islamist incursions from Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. And don’t think that Israel can just settle down to a mini-Cold War of Mutually Assured Destruction…the leaders of Iran are not rational beings as the leaders of the old USSR were. We could rely upon the Soviets to want to survive – Israel can rely on no such thing from the Iranian leadership.

It could be decided that the only way to be sure is by the nuclear destruction of not just the nuke sites, but of Tehran and Qum as well – taking out the civil, religious and military leadership of Iran at a blow, while also destroying the nuclear program which is the ultimate threat.

Impossible? If our nation’s life was faced with utter destruction at the hands of an irrational, hate-filled enemy and our only means were nuclear, what would you do?

Round and round we go with Carter II’s foreign policy:

Frustrated by Iran’s continued defiance of demands to come clean on its nuclear program, the Obama administration is leaning toward imposing new sanctions, even if it must act alone.

Administration officials acknowledged growing concern that there may not be international consensus to expand the existing U.N. sanctions, despite Tehran’s apparent rejection of a confidence-building measure proposed by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog in hopes of making progress on the nuclear issue.

To that end, the administration is quietly supporting legislation in Congress that would give President Barack Obama a broad new array of authority to target Iran’s energy sector by penalizing foreign firms that sell and ship refined petroleum products to Iran. The regime is heavily dependent on gasoline, kerosene and propane imports.

Uh, Barry, old buddy – you don’t need to dither around waiting for Congress…you can just tell the Iranians that if they don’t cave by, say, November 10th, we’ll send the US Navy to intercept all gasoline tankers headed towards Iran. Trust me on this one: Iran will at least sit down for some serious discussions.

Now, to be sure, they will try to roll you – they’ve taken your measure and see you as a weak man. Threatening blockade will take them off guard, but they’ll also be thinking that they can get you to back down once they throw some sweet words your way. That is why your words will have to be backed up with major ship movements towards the area.

They don’t want to fight us directly – they are building a nuclear program so that they can hide behind nukes and fight us via proxies without a worry of direct retaliation. They will back down if they believe the choice is war or submission. Do keep in mind, of course, that even if they back down they’ll still be dishonest and keep as much of their nuke program as they can…but you can slow them down for years, and in years a lot of things might change, including a revolution (and it’d be nice if you’d say a kind word or two about the Iranian dissidents, ya know?).

But if you go this route of endless jawing and waiting for this, that and the other thing to happen, then you’ll have no credibility and the Iranians will eventually laugh at your threats…which might put us in the difficult position of either backing down, or going to war. Much better if we make them dance to our tune.

From Powerline:

Iran Double-Crosses Obama

Iran isn’t going to ship its uranium – it wants France to ship enriched uranium to Iran, while Iran holds on to its current uranium stockpile, presumptively so that Iran can have both a civil and military nuclear program. Meanwhile, Iran’s government is telling its people that the United States has agreed to Iran’s continuing nuclear program.

This is the most monumentally obtuse government, ever. Next to Obama, Chamberlain looks like a brilliant negotiator.

Not too well:

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has praised Russia for its diplomatic work with world powers over Iran’s nuclear program.

But she has failed to reach agreement with Russia on new sanctions against Iran.

A month ago in New York, Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev appeared to suggest his country might support new sanctions against Iran.

In Moscow Ms Clinton was looking for a more solid commitment.

She did not get one.

And she won’t get one – because Russia wants a strong, nuclear-armed Iran to be a thorn in our strategic side; because Russia wants to rebuild some sort of Russian Empire; because we already gave away our best leverage – the missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

We’re being governed by arguably the most foolish Administration in world history…

Regarding Iran:

President Obama appeared in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House Thursday afternoon to demand that leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran take concrete actions to defuse international tensions regarding its nuclear program, beginning with allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency “full access” to Iran’s nuclear facility at Qom within the next two weeks.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, with whom the president has been in close contact, will be arriving in Tehran in the next few days, the president said.

“Our patience is not unlimited,” the president said, alluding to tougher economic sanctions if Iran does not take the necessary steps. “The United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely, and we are prepared to move towards increased pressure.”

What’ll he do? Threaten to threaten again? Now, there is a story that Iran will send a large amount of its uranium to Russia for final processing as fuel-grade material. This is considered good news – how so, I can’t imagine. Iran doesn’t need a civil nuclear program – in fact, Iran is largely bankrupting itself with its nuclear program. Send that stuff to Russia for final processing as fuel-grade and all your doing is saving the Iranians some trouble – once back in Iran, it can then be further processed to weapons-grade. And this, of course, would presume that Iran would do it – and that Russia would tell us the truth if Iran didn’t perform. We’ll also have no way of telling, if Iran performs, that this is all the material they have.

The problem with negotiating with Iran is that there’s no real teeth behind it. Alluding to possible pressure at some future point if Iran doesn’t come through is utterly foolish – and Obama’s statement is just the mindless statement of someone who thinks that negotiating is an end, rather than a means. For liberals, as long as you’re talking, everything is going swell. Well, it will be for the Iranian mullahs – as long as we’re talking with no threat of force around, they can continue on their merry, nuclear way.

The only way to get Iran to the table – really to the table and willing to give up the nukes – is to make it clear to Iran that failure to comply means force will be used, in whatever measure proves necessary. Iran can bluster about fighting, but even the most kooky of Iranian mullahs know they can’t actually stop us – they can’t stop us from bombing the facilities, blockading the ports, blowing up Iran’s sole gasoline refinery. They can shoot back a bit, but that would only give us the excuse to entirely wreck Iran’s military power. Put the threat of force on the table, and the Iranians will back down – in addition, this will encourage the Iranian people in their simmering revolt; there is nothing better for oppressed people than to feel that the United States is on their side against their oppressors.

But, Obama will talk and talk and talk and the issue will just stumble along…until Iran has nukes, or Israel just decides to take care of the issue, with incalculable results for the world. The Giant is bound hand and foot – and Obama is the man tying him down.

And that is bad news, because his whole foreign policy concept was wrapped around diplomacy:

…when President Obama addressed the General Assembly and Security Council he already knew that Iran was ignoring international standards, and its latest violations endangered international peace and security more than ever before. And yet he deliberately refused to put Iran on the agenda of the Council summit — the same Council that he claimed bore responsibility for responding to such threats.

President Obama knew that if the magnitude of the Iranian threat were revealed yesterday, the emptiness of his resolution would have been embarrassingly obvious and his cover blown. In public, at the highest levels of the U.N, he heralded generalities as significant. In private, he was petitioning lower levels of the U.N. to act on startling specifics of the Iranian threat.

Why did the president not present this same evidence to the Security Council, the body with “the authority and the responsibility to respond”? Why did he not challenge world leaders to deal with the same Iranian threat that he privately was pressing upon U.N. bureaucrats?

There is only one possible answer: President Obama does not have the political will to do what it takes to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Indeed – buy why doesn’t he have the political will?

1. Because liberals refuse to understand that tyrants are wicked people.
2. Because liberals think that diplomacy is a substitute for armed force, rather than each (diplomacy and military power) being indispensable to each other.
3. Because leaders, by and large, would rather not make a decision – make a decision and you might make the wrong one. It takes immense courage for any leader to make a choice…and this courage is rare in leaders (ie, note that in 1940 among all the various British and French leaders, only one had the courage to consistently demand that aggressive action be taken against Germany…Winston Churchill; everyone else was just hoping to get through the crisis with as little trouble as possible).

Naive world view, ignorance and cowardice..that is why Iran is set to build a bomb. More and more, its looking like the world will have to rely on Israel to do our duty, for us.

You expected something different?

President Obama and the leaders of France and Britain blasted Iran’s construction of a previously unacknowledged uranium enrichment facility and demanded Friday that Tehran immediately fulfill its obligations under international law or risk the imposition of harsh new sanctions.

“Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow,” Obama said, detailing how the facility near Qom had been under construction for years without being disclosed, as required, to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “International law is not an empty promise.”

Yes, it is, Mr. President – international law is not just an empty promise, its a figment of liberal imagination unless it is backed up by a clear threat to use US military force. America – and America alone – has the combination of moral justification and military power necessary to be the enforcer of international law. If we won’t do it, then no one will. Period. End of story. Take Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, India and Brazil and roll them all together and you don’t have an equal amount of morality and force – none of these nations will actually enforce international law because they either can’t, or don’t even see the need. They will, if we lead, come along with us some times – but they won’t come along at all if we’re not willing to do so.

We are dealing in Iran with leaders who murder their own people in cold blood – people who are willing to do such criminal acts are not going to be deterred by lectures from an American President, nor tut-tutting from international do-gooders. People like the leaders in Iran do whatever they think they can get away with – right now, they think they can get away with building nuclear weapons and, truth be told, going back to the last two years of the Bush Administration there has been no indication that anyone would stop them.

Now it is crunch time – now we must decide: will we permit Iran to have nuclear weapons? If the answer is “yes”, then we might as well leave off the false rhetoric of condemnation as issuing such, and then doing nothing, not only makes us look cowardly, it also makes us look dishonest. If the answer is “no”, then we must steel ourselves to act – first against Iran’s gasoline supplies, finally against Iran’s military forces, if that proves necessary. Regardless of our choice, there will be wide repercussions around the world – there’s no way to ignore this and hope it will go away. An Iran armed with nukes will have an effect, an Iran prostrate under US force will have an effect – which effects do we want?

As for me, I prefer to take a calculated risk of war and deal with Iran, right now, before they can build nukes and put them on IRBM and ICBMs. My fear is that we’ll get nothing but waffling from Obama – statements of condemnations out of one side of his mouth, appeasement of Iran’s leaders out of the other…

The story:

After Paris warned that new sanctions against Teheran remained an option despite the likelihood of negotiations with Iran, French President Nicolas Sarkozy maintained that the Islamic republic was still working on a nuclear weapons program.

“It is a certainty to all of our secret services. Iran is working today on a nuclear [weapons] program,” Sarkozy told lawmakers from his UMP party on Tuesday, according to Press TV.

“We cannot let Iran acquire nuclear” weapons because it would also be a threat to Israel, he added.

Negotiations, at this juncture, are quite pointless – we first must demonstrate to the Iranian leaders that we will not permit them to obtain nuclear weapons, and thus they’d better negotiate away their “right” to do so for the best deal possible. The best way to convince the Iranian leadership we mean business is to blockade Iran’s gasoline imports, with the escalation being the destruction of Iran’s gasoline refinery. Gasoline is Iran’s Achilles heel – they import most of it, and they can’t continue to repress their people without it. With the Iranian people simmering on the verge of revolt, the Iranian government cannot afford to go even a week without the means of swift repression..and you can’t get the goons around effectively on foot.

If we don’t do this, then Israel’s only recourse – her only chance at survival – is an all-out military attack on Iran’s nuclear program. Such an attack would have wide and unforeseeable results – of such things are world wars made…but Israel cannot afford to live under an Iranian nuclear gun – it does no one in Israel any good to think that they’ll be able to retaliate…two or three nukes would destroy Israel, utterly…a counter-attack might be grimly desired by the few survivors, but it wouldn’t revive the dead. It is either a vigorous American effort, or an act of desperation on the part of Israel – wisdom dictates that its better if we can force Iran to the table…but we won’t be able to do so by being nice or refusing to attack Iran at its weak points.

Or, “how to sound like you’re talking tough, but you really ain’t“:

GREGORY: Did you mean to suggest that the U.S. is considering a nuclear umbrella that would say to nations in the Arab world that an attack on you, just like NATO or Japan is an attack on the United States, and the United States would retaliate?

CLINTON: Well, I think it’s clear that we’re trying to affect the internal calculus of the Iranian regime. You know, the Iranian government, which is facing its own challenges of legitimacy from its people, has to know that that a pursuit of nuclear weapons, something that our country along with our allies stand strongly against. We believe as a matter of policy it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. The G-8 came out with a very strong statement to that effect coming from Italy.

So we are united in our continuing commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions that if you’re pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we’re not going to let that happen.

First, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent you from ever getting a nuclear weapon. But your pursuit is futile, because we will never let Iran — nuclear-armed, not nuclear-armed, it is something that we view with great concern, and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to prevent that from ever happening.

GREGORY: All right, but let’s be specific. Are you talking about a nuclear umbrella?

CLINTON: We, we are, we are not talking in specifics, David, because, you know, that would come later, if at all. You know, my view is you hope for the best, you plan for the worst.

Our hope is — that’s why we’re engaged in the president’s policy of engagement toward Iran — is that Iran will understand why it is in their interest to go along with the consensus of the international community, which very clearly says you have rights and responsibilities; you have a right to pursue the peaceful use of civil nuclear power; you do not have a right to obtain a nuclear weapon; you do not have the right to have the full enrichment and reprocessing cycle under your control.

But there’s a lot that we can do with Iran if Iran accepts what is the international consensus. (emphasis added)

First off, Madam Secretary, it is absurd to talk of Iran not having a right to nuclear weapons. No nation has an intrinsic right to such horrific things – some nations have them, and some don’t. As a nuclear-armed nation the question for us always will be: do we want “Nation X” to obtain nuclear weapons? If you’re going to argue a point that Iran doesn’t have a right to the weapons, then Iran’s position in any negotiations will be to get us to agree that Iran does have a right to such weapons. We’ll be arguing in circles and making no progress. So, do we want a nuclear-armed Iran?

The official Obama Administration position is, “no” – but the statements of Secretary Clinton indicate we consider a nuclear-armed Iran a foregone conclusion unless the Iranians, by some chance, voluntarily agree to eschew such weapons, out of the goodness of their hearts (the same hearts which gun down young women in Iran’s streets, that is). We have just telegraphed, loud and clear, that we will not act to prevent Iran from obtaining such weapons…the talk of “we won’t allow” or “we will stop” is just mindless yammering right after anyone in the Obama Administration says, “What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions that if you’re pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we’re not going to let that happen”. What needed to be said is, “we will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran and Iran should pay heed to our resolve and seek to make the best deal they can in return for their voluntary surrendering of the nuclear option”.

Once Iran has a nuke, they will inherently intimidate their neighbors and will inherently be able to project their power – these two things are the result of building nukes, not something you do with a nuke after you’ve built it. A nuclear armed Iran changes the power calculus in the middle east because the statements of Iran’s leaders cannot be ignored – while it might all be bluster, everyone will have to work on the assumption that they’re crazy enough to use them. And don’t think a “nuclear umbrella” will do much…no one in Saudi Arabia or Turkey is really going to think we’ll risk a nuclear counter attack on ourselves because Iran nuked Ankara or some other city. And the Israelis won’t care about it – a couple nukes over Israel means the end of Israel, period: Holocaust II. It wouldn’t even be cold comfort to think that after 5 million more are murdered the US will possibly nuke Tehran in response.

Clinton, speaking for Obama, has blown our chances of using something short of all out war to prevent an Iranian nuclear force. Nice job. No we’ll either get a nasty war in a couple years, or a generation of nuclear brinksmanship and even worse terror-sponsoring.

Goodness, I hope this report isn’t true:

The United States is opposed to enacting a new set of financial sanctions against Iran that are due to be discussed in the G8 summit next week, diplomatic officials in New York reported Friday.

According to officials, sanctions against Iran are expected to top the G8’s agenda. Sources are also predicting a pointed debate between the heads of the industrialized nations over an appropriate response to Iranian authorities’ suppression of reformist demonstrations in Iran led by Mir Hossein Mousavi and other Iranian opposition leaders…

…diplomatic sources in New York reported that American officials are working behind the scenes to prevent new sanctions from being imposed against Iran.

U.S. officials claimed that a tough stance toward Iran could backfire, bringing about an opposite outcome to that desired by those who support such measures.

The Obama administration, according to the diplomatic sources, has discarded the notion of direct talks with Iran. However, the United States is still interested in re-engaging Iran through the renewed discussion of its nuclear program through the five permanent United Nations Security Council members and Germany.

Obama, if you are doing this, then you are a fool; and your folly will eventually be paid for by human blood. You can’t do this – you can’t back off on sanctions and then hope to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran: if you back off, you see, all you’ll do is convince the blood-soaked mullahs that you are a coward and that they can get away with anything as long as you are in office. Doesn’t matter if, deep down inside, you have an American backbone – the damage will be done and no one will ever believe you have it. And like the appeasers of old, you might be forced to show a bit of steel at the worst possible moment.

I drove around town a bit today and the American flag is still flown proudly by Americans – don’t make betray the trust of those who showed their patriotism today..

Since you guys have been saying for 26 years that SDI wouldn’t work and your own guy, Obama, campaign against SDI…why is Obama deploying SDI around Hawaii under threat of a NK missile launch? Shouldn’t he just say “there’s nothing we can do to stop it because – as I stated in my campaign – SDI doesn’t work…but, don’t worry, if NK does nuke Hawaii, we’ll nuke them to heck and gone because the way to ensure nuclear peace is via mutual assured destruction”?

Come now, liberals, what have you to say?

With the increasing temperature in what is, so far, a war of words, the point has now been reached for a vigorous, US-led diplomatic effort to defuse this crisis before it gets out of hand. The trouble is, in the Obama Administration there isn’t the foggiest notion of what constitutes diplomacy.

To Obama and his Democrats, “diplomacy” means “talk, sign agreement, obtain Nobel Peace Prize” – the trouble is that regimes like that of North Korea will talk for ever and sign whatever agreement you like…but diplomacy is not about talking and coming to an agreement, but in obtaining the desired international result without resort to war. Our desire – our only true policy vis a vis North Korea – is to de-fang the regime and terminate its nuclear program. The art of diplomacy is figuring out what means will be necessary to achieve our desire.

There are various means possible for us to obtain our desire short of war:

1. Economic sanctions.
2. Blockade.
3. Special Forces decapitation of the North Korean regime.
4. Bribery.
5. Determine who can force change within North Korea, convince them we are serious.

Economic sanctions – the route the UN is going – is the least effective means as North Korea doesn’t have an economy in a lot of respects. Additionally, the NK regime is entirely uninterested in how much the people of NK suffer. As long as there is sufficient food to supply the security forces, the NK regime is ok with whatever else happens.

Blockade would be ineffective for the same reason economic sanctions – there’s not much to blockade, other than the export of nuclear weapons materials.

Decapitating the NK regime would be an effective means of ending the crisis – it would either cause the implosion of the NK regime or, at the least, force the successors to understand that their lives are at stake if they go too far in offending the United States. Trouble is, the NK regime appears very well protected against direct attack. There might not be an effective means of using our special forces.

Bribery is a worthwhile thing to think about – and it works in conjunction with all other possibilities. As in all tyrannical ruling classes, the upper echelon is addicted to luxury and special privileges. For a couple billion dollars, we might very well be able to buy our way out of the trouble, at least in part.

In my view, the best thing to do is to find out who can effect change within NK – it appears to me that China has a great deal of pull in NK and appears to like having a NK regime around to scare up trouble for the United States and Japan at a moment’s notice. I also get the distinct impression that China would not want to have a unified, democratic Korea on its border – just too much danger of people on the Chinese side of the border wondering why they can’t be free, too. If we can convince the Chinese to pressure the NK regime we might accomplish our goal without war.

The key to this is to state our demands, insist they are unalterable, and then set up a conference of all concerned parties in order thrash the matter out. As China and North Korea don’t want war, they will give in if we convince them we are serious – end the NK nuclear program, or we fight. If it turns out that China doesn’t have sufficient influence in NK, then we’ll find that out – and that would be worthwhile in and of itself because then, if China can’t convince and the NK regime refuses to yield then the way would be open at least for US air strikes in NK’s known nuclear sites, if it comes to that.

Will we get anything like a clear and courageous policy from Obama? I doubt it – he lacks the understanding of history, the world and the reality of the situation to even understand what he’s dealing with, let alone develope a cogent policy. More than likely, we’ll drift along and eventually have some sort of worthless deal, much ballyhooed in the MSM, that will temporarily put the issue on the back burner…until NK decides to roll the nuclear dice, again.

Pajamas TV has some interesting info about possible vote fraud and other attempts to thwart the will of the Iranian people.

UPDATE: Iranian State media proclaim Ahmadinejad the winner with 66% of the vote…which sounds suspiciously high given how miserable life is for the average Iranian these days.

Nicholas Guariglia thinks so:

Things on the Korean peninsula are heating up by the hour. This latest round of nuclear and missile tests should come as no surprise, given President Obama’s non-response to North Korea’s missile provocations several weeks ago. This time, however, Pyongyang detonated a 20-kiloton device — the ground shook 130 miles away — which is an estimated 20 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb North Korea tested in 2006.

Predictably, the international community bemoaned with platitudinous reprimands — Obama: “gravely concerned”; the United Nations: “deeply worried” — and even more predictably, North Korea responded by threatening war against South Korea, disavowing the 1953 armistice, and swearing to continue production of nuclear weapons. Surprise, surprise…

…Having spent way more time in “diplomacy school” than anyone’s mental health should allow, I can personally attest: active diplomats, retired diplomats-turned-professors, and aspiring would-be diplomats refuse to recognize that some things in this world fall outside of their professional purview. Could we imagine any other profession — say, anesthesiology or lumberjacking — making that same bold claim about itself?

Kim has made a mockery of our diplomacy with him for nearly two decades. He soaked President Clinton for all he was worth, clicking champagne glasses with Madeleine Albright all the while perfecting the art of plutonium production. During the Bush administration, Kim reneged on every preliminary agreement before the preliminary agreement could get its trousers off. And now he’s manhandling Mr. Obama to the point of embarrassment…

…Enough is enough. Kim Jong Il has proven he will stop at nothing to produce and proliferate nuclear weapons, and that is a no-no. Diplomacy has failed. Talking for the sake of talking is not working. Serious powers ought to be emphasizing results, not process. “Soft power” is a problem cured by Cialis — not a national security strategy for North Korea. It’s time we started working to bring that twisted, Lilliputian, Chia Pet miscreant down.

Within the linked article are suggestions on ways and means of bringing Kim down – including allowing Japan to build nuclear weapons, a course of action which does not commend itself to me (call me paranoid, but I like a rich, powerful Japan which lacks nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers…just makes certain there’s no desire in Tokyo for a re-match). My view is that Kim’s regime is moribund already and we don’t need to push it to extinction – it totters that way, already. With Kim’s apparent selection of his youngest son as successor, we see the opportunity for a change…will the third Kim be able to exercise the ruthless power necessary to keep a starving population under subjection? I’m betting he won’t be able to do it – the sort of sick inhumanity required to maintain a Stalinist regime is very hard to transmit from one generation to another, and I’m figuring it can’t be done to a third generation in North Korea.

While I don’t expect the NK regime to collapse immediately upon the elder Kim’s demise, I do believe that the NK leadership will take stock and try to figure out a way to feather their nests, and then allow the regime to fall. It will be a complicated dance which will require the cooperation of China (and, likely, a complete US withdrawal from Korea), but the thing can be managed – once the elder Kim is dead. We hope, of course, that Kim will be sent for final judgment in a short span of time – but that might still be years away. Meanwhile, our job is to ensure against NK exporting nuclear capability or thinking that it can blackmail us with nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

This does call for diplomacy – but not the way Obama and Co view diplomacy. Diplomacy isn’t just talking and making nice. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Russia and England were at loggerheads and war was imminent. England had various demands which Russia had to accept or war would result. Russia was thinking that England was bluffing. The German Chancellor, Bismarck, wanted to find out if England really was – and so Bismarck went to meet with the British Prime Minister – Benjamin Disraeli – and talked and talked for hours…just relentlessly pressing Disraeli to come clean and admit that it was all a bluff, that England wouldn’t go to war…over and over again, Disraeli carefully and patiently kept re-stating the British position – Russia backs down, or there will be war. After a long while, Bismarck was 100% convinced that England wasn’t bluffing and advised the Russians – who couldn’t sustain a war against Britian – to back down. Peace secured – but only at the forthright and stout assurance that if one side didn’t back down, there would be war. We must tell NK to back down, at the threat of war, and make China understand that we are serious – NK gives up the nukes, or we fight. Once China is convinced we are deadly serious, they’ll get NK to cool it. End of crisis – and then we just wait for Kim to kick the bucket.

We’ll find out swiftly if Obama has any real sense of diplomacy – or whether he’s just another Chamberlain who thinks you can shake hands with barbarians and get them to love you.