READ THE FINE PRINT - AT 5:28 P.M. ET:  Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is sounding stern toward Iran, but you have to read the fine print.  From AP:

The administration is now beginning a push to get international support for additional penalties against Iran as a result, and Mullen suggested he thinks that backing was there.

''I think signals are very clearly in the air that another set of sanctions, another resolution, that that's coming,'' he said.

''I grow increasingly concerned that the Iranians have been non-responsive. I've said for a long time we don't need another conflict in that part of the world,'' he said. ''I'm not predicting that would happen, but I think they've got to get to a position where they are a constructive force and not a destabilizing force.''

COMMENT:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  The issue isn't sanctions.  There already are sanctions on Iran.  The issue is the kind of sanctions.  Hillary Clinton has spoken of "crippling" sanctions, but what are the real chances that Russia or China would go along with them?

I suspect that, after all the yapping, it will come down to a decision to attack, or not to attack.  Bottom line:  The Iranians will probably get the bomb, but maintain ambiguity about having it.

December 20, 2009