The Iranian regime has reportedly offered to enter into “serious negotiations” over their nuclear program, but will not stop enriching uranium or continuing to develop nuclear weapons technologies. And really, why should they? They know quite well that the UN is impotent and toothless, the EU has neither the political will nor the military ability to stop them, and both the US and Israel are already too constrained in the region to seriously act.
All the Iranians are doing is stalling for more time. They’re undoubtedly close to developing a nuclear weapon within the next two years, and possibly much sooner. Once they possess nuclear weapons, they become virtually untouchable.
We simply don’t have any good options in this case. Military action is always a choice of last resort, and our military options in regards to Iran have never been good, even without the issue of Iraq getting in the way. The Iranians continue to call our bluff. They know that ultimately they’re negotiating from a position of strength, while we in the West don’t have the courage and ability to force them to give up their nuclear ambitions.
Across the globe, dangerous regimes continue to test the world’s willingness to fight for their values and keep the global order — and we keep failing that test. Sooner or later a fatal provocation will occur, and the events of the last twenty years may well be remembered as fatefully filled with naïvete as the twenty years between the First and Second World Wars.
