An end of the month deadline for Iran to demonstrate they don't have nuclear weapons ambitions?
Iran should be panicking about now, right? You're new to this administration, aren't you?
The United States will struggle to secure a framework nuclear deal between Iran and major powers by a March 31 deadline, due to resistance from Tehran and scepticism among other countries, officials said.
With the two sides resuming negotiations this week, Washington is under heavy pressure as it pushes for the political framework accord that would lay the foundations for a full deal with Iran by June 30.
We're under heavy pressure?
Bombers should be moving and carriers sailing. More stringent sanctions paperwork should just be awaiting a signature and transmittal.
Iran should be the one to feel under heavy pressure to conclude a deal we will accept!
Remember, we can have a bad deal that paves the way for Iran to get nukes; a good deal that slows or stops Iran's path to nukes; or military strikes that slow Iran's progress to get nukes.
Iran should be made to worry about a "only Nixon can go to China" moment.
Oh, not the BS one where President Obama seeks to make mullah-run Iran our partner. Comparing that to a known anti-communist being trusted to make a deal with communist China in our interests does not apply.
No, the real "Nixon goes to China moment" for President Obama would be the president who is a citizen of the world beyond being a mere American president who dislikes our military and military record, and has a Nobel Peace Prize for nuclear disarmament already under his belt, launching a major military campaign to smash up every bit of Iran's nuclear infrastructure in Iran or elsewhere that we can reach.
Bush 43 would have been impeached for doing that. President Obama would probably get a second Nobel Peace Prize.(Although I no longer think he'd get one for nuking Iran.)
Then we'd have a new saying: "Only Obama can level Iran."
But no, the deadline is meaningless. We will either accept a bad deal to make that deadline; or we'll set a new deadline 6 months in the future.
I'd rather overthrow the Iranian regime, since it is the regime that matters and not the nukes. Nobody worries about France owning nukes. And funny enough, as I've mentioned before, nobody in the Middle East really worries about Israeli nukes as the lack of proliferation worries prior to Iran's effort testify.
A non-mullah government with nukes wouldn't be great but it would be better than mullahs with nukes.
And there's probably a good chance that a normal government would not want to waste money on nuclear weapons.
But since I've long given up hope of an effort to support a revolt against the mullahs and since I have little hope that we can convince Iran to sign a good deal, a military strike seems like the only reasonable option left.
If Iran believed we would do that, we might actually get a deal close enough to being good to be worth signing if we keep our eye on the ball of regime change before Iran gets nukes.
Of course, for all of our president's reputation as being the pacifist anti-Bush, he does have the lead in wars waged. So I don't actually think it is out of the question that President Obama would strike Iran--I just think his inept diplomacy makes that option more likely and perhaps more difficult.
So I retain hope that President Bush left President Obama--or the next president--one last option to disarm a nuclear Iran.
We really have no clue how to do this diplomacy thing, do we?
UPDATE: On the eve of the deadline, we remain unclear on the whole concept of deadlines:
U.S. officials are insisting that Tuesday is a "real deadline" for reaching an agreement to roll back Iran's nuclear program, but they also aren't threatening to walk away from the talks if a deal isn't struck by day's end.
If I may be so bold, if we don't walk away and impose consequences on Iran for failing to agree to something acceptable to normal human beings who don't believe Iran is just an innocent but very enthusiastic supporter of cheap, clean nuclear energy, then what happens Tuesday is just "Tuesday."
I'd say that our reputation is dead if we allow Iran to cross this line, but our foes have crossed so many lines and ignored so many "deadlines" that our reputation is just a zombie thing now.
