What Next, Messiah?

The old punch-line about "are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?" is more and more applicable. By now we've seen enough denial coming from this administration to last a lifetime. It was cynical and sarcastic when I previously said that whatever he says, understand the truth to be just the opposite. Now we are getting to crunch time.

This week we've watched the President first stand before the nations of the world and abrogate American leadership with a declaration that we are no better than Somalia or North Korea or Zimbabwe or any of the dozens of other hell-holes of the world. We possess no moral superiority in his world view.

He followed that up with an impassioned vision of a nuclear-free future. We, the world's super-power, which has kept the nuclear genie at bay for sixty years through our clear policy of strength and deterrence, would lead the way toward disarmament.

That got an immediate response from his close friend in Iran who said, "by the way, Barack, did I mention this additional under-ground high grade nuclear material plant?" Faced with the public statement, the Messiah brought forth a "new discovery" of the facility which somehow denied the evidence that intelligence had identified the plant more than two years ago. Denial in action.

In almost Clinton-esque fashion, he wagged his finger at the camera and spoke of the severe sanctions which would be imposed for flaunting a nuclear weapons program. The reply to that? How about some launches of mid-range missiles capable of reaching half of Europe, all of Israel, Afghanistan and Pakistan and half of India. Payload? About 2500 pounds. For comparison, the 345KT weapon I used to baby-sit (that's more than 15 times the yield of the Hiroshima weapon) weighed in around 800 pounds. Plenty of throw-weight available in these missiles for an Iranian crude device.

Here is a sobering analysis of where we can go from here:

Rock and Hard Place, Bad and Worse Options Left

The bad choice that remains is military intervention to remove the nuclear capability. As the editorial points out, that is a lot tougher than it was in 1981 at Osirik. It will be messy and it will have repercussions. It can be done by Israel or the US. The underlying truth here is that if we don't do it, Israel has no choice.

The worse choice is waiting for the seismic evidence that Iran has completed their work and a weapon is a reality in their hands. That seems to be the leaning of the administration. Somehow the naivete of the incumbent has him believe that once Iran has a bomb, they will be confident and secure and their bellicosity will be reduced so that they eagerly seek to become good neighbors. Christmas is coming but Santa can't put that in his sack, I'm afraid.

Is there a third choice? Maybe. We could get Russia and China, along with the Arab states to come on board with meaningful and effective sanctions that would bring the economy of Iran to a standstill. The people would finally have had enough of the theocracy and resist their government. Replacement with a progressive and democratic regime would be a positive outcome. Is that likely or probable? Not at all, except maybe in the Bamster's fantasy world.

I'm thinking the choice is going to be the worse one and that will trigger Israel's application of the bad one. Which means there isn't really a choice at all now.