IRAN – GOING CRITICAL – AT 7:04 P.M. ET:  We've had a lot of distractions in recent days, including the president's political decline, the election of Scott Brown, and even the Super Bowl, but, in the meantime, the Iranian situation is becoming a full-blown crisis.  From AFP:

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a "punch" that will stun world powers during this week's 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

"The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned," Khamenei, who is also Iran's commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel.

The country's top cleric was marking the occasion when Iran's air force gave its support to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a key event which led to the toppling of the US-backed shah on February 11, 1979.

His comments came as Iran said it would begin to produce higher enriched uranium from Tuesday, in defiance of Western powers trying to ensure the country's nuclear drive is peaceful.

This year's anniversary is expected to become a flashpoint between security forces and supporters of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who charge that the June re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rigged.

COMMENT:  Secretary of Defense Gates, who is sane, is expressing increasing concern over the rapidly expanding Iranian nuclear program.  So are French and other European officials.

From the White House, silence.  Not even an expression of interest.

It would be appropriate for the president of the United States to warn Iran against using violence to repress freedom demonstrators this Thursday, the 11th, the key day in the "anniversary" celebrations.  I don't think it will happen.  I don't think Obama particularly cares. 

As to the punch we'll get, we'll have to see.  It may be a new plane or missile.

Iran is the single greatest foreign-policy challenge of this administration.  So far, Obama can claim no success.

February 8, 2010