Israel Matzav

Does the US have a policy on Iran? If so, what is it?

On Sunday, I asked how the Obama administration plans to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, something Secretary of State Clinton insists it is going to do. In Monday's New York Daily News, Michael Goodwin asks whether the Obama administration has a policy on Iran at all.

More to the unfortunate point, her choice of words in Thailand caused doubts about whether the United States even has a policy toward Iran. If we don't, we better get one.

If we do, someone should explain it. Maybe Clinton, or maybe her boss, President Obama, will spell it out.

The key question is this: Are we determined to stop the mad mullahs from getting nukes, as the White House insisted? Or have we resigned ourselves to a nuclear-armed Iran, as Clinton suggested, then quickly denied?

The future of the world might depend on the answer. And please, make it fast. Iran's centrifuges for enriching uranium are spinning as we dither.

The latest report has more than 7,000 running. And some diplomats said last week Iran could produce enough material to test a nuclear bomb within six months.

I don't believe that the Obama administration doesn't have a policy on Iran. The problem is that it has no 'Plan B' for when its policy - 'engagement' - doesn't work. The President remains convinced that his personal charisma will convince the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons, while nearly everyone else at the party recognizes that there's not a chance in hell of that happening.

And yet Obama, who is clearly running foreign policy for the United States, is so sure that he will convince Iran to drop its nuclear weapons program that he refuses to talk about a 'Plan B.'

The Greeks had a word for Obama's behavior. They called it hubris.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:15 PM