STRANGE – AT 8:12 A.M.:  Former Defense Secretary Bob Gates said that in all his years of public service, the Iran issue is the most difficult.  It is difficult because there are no good solutions.

If we, or the Israelis, strike Iran militarily, it could set back or even destroy that country's nuclear program.  But it could also unleash economic convulsions and and lead to a wider military conflict.  But if we, or the Israelis, do not strike Iran, Iran will surely get the atomic bomb, placing the most terrible weapon in history in the hands of a fanatical regime whose vision of the world is horrifying. 

There is a lot of Iran news, some of it very strange.  The current secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, has now said – and he refuses to withdraw the statement – that Israel might strike Iran in April, May, or June.  It is extraordinary for an official to discuss such an eventuality and give specific dates.  I don't recall it ever happening before. 

What was the purpose of the statement?  That is being debated across the internet and in the mainstream media.  Was it to warn the Iranians that they'd better get serious about curtailing their nuclear program?  Or was it to give away a critical piece of information in the hope that it would deter the Israelis from attacking?  Or was it something else?

The American "red line" on Iran, and the Israeli red line, are different.  To the United States, the red line is a decision by Iran to actually build a bomb, or information that they've done so.  But to Israel, the red line is the point at which the Iranian nuclear program becomes invulnerable to conventional attack.  Iran is hardening its nuclear facilities, placing many of them deep underground.  It is widely accepted in defense circles that we don't have a conventional bomb, at present, that can penetrate that far.  That leaves the option of using nuclear weapons, and that is just unacceptable to Washington.

So the Israeli red line seems to be the most realistic.  If Iran can make a conventional attack ineffective, we are truly hamstrung.  The Israelis believe, and it appears that our intelligence people agree, that invulnerability will occur this spring or summer.  At the same time, and as we reported here yesterday, our intelligence people also believe that the Iranians are quite willing to strike at American targets, even without an attack on their soil, and they might even strike within the United States itself...a terrorist attack.

Further, there is growing concern that Iran's alliance with Venezuela and its relations with drug cartels south of our Mexican border could give it the ability to smuggle weapons and dangerous materials, like radioactive substances, into the U.S.

We currently have in place some serious sanctions on Iran.  By all accounts they are hurting the Iranian economy.  What they don't seem to be hurting is Iran's nuclear program.  Nothing we've done or proposed has ever stopped that program.  And that program will be invulnerable to conventional attack within months.

Our allies seem to be with us, but whether they'll be with us, or Israel, if a military action is deemed necessary, is problematical.  In a stunning development, the German head of a major international security conference has just said that we can learn to live with an Iranian nuclear bomb.  Germany has disturbingly close relations with Iran.  In another upsetting development, Nick Clegg, whose liberal party is part of the governing coalition of Britain, is making his usual left-wing noises about the danger of war with Iran...exactly the wrong message to send to Tehran.  If Tehran senses fear rather than resolve, it will surely move forward toward a bomb.

There are no good choices here.  But there were no good choices in the late 1930s either.  Resisting Germany and aggressive Japan could have meant war.  Appeasement brought peace – for a time – and dishonor.  Churchill said it best about the policies of his own country.  Britain had a choice between war and dishonor.  It chose dishonor...and it got war.

We live in interesting times.  And we lack greatness in the White House.

February 3,  2012