Is this mike on?

[Banquo's Ghost]

So you're saying if a nuclear bomb went off in a US city and Iran was implicated, but vehemently denied any involvement you'd be in favor of turning Iran into a sheet of glass? I don't think they believe any such thing.

I would be in favour of a proportionate response and would expect it. Apart from the woolliness of the scenario proposed (I assume you're positing a suitcase bomb deployed by unidentified terrorists claimed by some group associated with Iranian interests) one would have to know how Iran was implicated. Let's face it, claims by your government would currently have to be treated with some degree of scepticism in such a scenario, don't you think?

Back in the real world, it is highly unlikely the Iranians would be able to develop ballistic technology to deliver a bomb effectively over long distances, let alone get such through the defence mechanisms of a country like the US. Which leads me on to:

The perceived threat of meaningful consequences can encourage negotiations. So far, the line has been "Iran must abandon it's nuclear aspirations or else we'll be forced to talk more about it." I'm sure Iran is perfectly happy with that arrangement- if any meaningful sanctions look anywhere close to being approved, Iran only need mention it wants more talks and Russia & China will back them up.

I think it's a forgone conclusion that Iran will get nuclear weapons- the international community is completely paralyzed and unable to agree on anything-, the question is what will they do with them? And the possible answers are truly frightening.

There is too much fear pervading here. I remember the same sort of panics in regard to the Soviet Union and their "faceless hordes". Iranians enjoy a sort of democracy - by no means what we would aspire to, but it does influence their politicians. It wasn't that long ago that the President was Hashemi Rafsanjani, a moderate with positive leanings to rapprochement. He was only defeated by Ahmadinejad in a run-off, and because the current president got many votes from the rural poor who hoped he would improve their lives. He has failed miserably in this, and the recent elections delivered a rebuke to his faction for this. He has been using the "Great Satan" to retain support as an embattled leader. But the ordinary Iranian, whilst backing a "wartime" leader for now, does not want his rhetoric to get them bombed.

Do you recognise the situation?

Weak leaders invariably bombast. The trick is to talk and provide them with new ways out, not treat them as pariahs and thus give them only one way to go. The US is not under any conceivable threat from Iran, whatever your own bombasts may say. You have the strength (and the big stick) to afford magnanimity. Even failure would only get us back to where we are now, not any worse.

If the international community is paralysed, it is only because its erstwhile leader is refusing to take the practical and possibly frutiful course of diplomacy, in direct contravention of his own advisors, while fatally bogged down militarily and for reasons that no-one can fathom. We are paralysed by astonishment.