Another thread of Iran story: North Korea.
In its policy on the Korean Peninsula, the White House came in talking tough and making threats, but then proceeded to do nothing over five years as the North Koreans proceeded to build a small nuclear arsenal (at least that seems to be the present consensus of where they are). The Bush administration policy on North Korea has been the worst sort of policy failure. Better to cower from the start than make threats and draw lines in the sand and then cower and make excuses later, which sums up what the administration has done.
Is it any different with Iran?
As many others have argued, we don’t seem to have any good military options in Iran. The physical arrangement of the Iranian nuclear facilities does not appear to leave it vulnerable to the sort of program-decapitation the Israelis dealt the Iraqis back in 1981. Nor do we have the land resources to mount an invasion of Iran even if we were inclined to.
The White House may see this problem as a means to game the 2006 elections with a bunch of talk that will be conveniently forgotten after November. But where was the White House on this issue in 2002 or 2003 or 2004 or 2005?
