Dakota Beacon

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “all options are on the table” to halt Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. The problem with this superficially aggressive stance is that it makes no matter whatsoever what is, or is not, on  the table when no one sits down to talk. This is the state of the current state of affairs on diplomatic talks versus the imposition of tougher economic sanctions.

Sanctions targeting fuel imports, trade and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard military have strong support on both sides of the aisle in the United States House and Senate. The State Department and United Nations’ diplomatic efforts have done little more than give Iran the time to build an atomic weapon and prepare to negate the effects of sanctions.

President Barack Obama, distracted by his administration’s domestic failures on health care reform and the economy, appears unengaged in the issue while Tehran, disingenuously denying a weapons program, continues its obstinate resistance to International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring and the UN Security Council’s actions.

Though willing to move forward on tougher sanctions, the Senate and the House are stymied by President Obama’s failure to engage Iran in campaign-promised talks. Six years of diplomacy have made no progress, yet the unchecked and growing threat of a nuclear standoff between Israel and Iran garnered scant mention in the president’s January 27 State of the Union address.

Obama said, “…the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated. And as Iran's leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: they, too, will face growing consequences.”

Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s centrifuges continue to turn out enriched weapons-grade uranium, and a German newspaper reports that Iran will have a working bomb within one year and a warhead-sized weapon by 2012.

With the Iranian leaderships’ conviction that Israel will be “erased from the map,” and Iran’s demonstrated support for terrorism, it seems unlikely Iran’s atomic weapons are meant to be solely a deterrent to offensive actions by the Islamic regime’s enemies.

The world is rightly suspicious of a nuclear-armed Iran and fearful of some terrifying radical Islamic parody of Middle Eastern mutual assured destruction (MAD) that existed between the U.S. and the USSR during the cold war. Israel may not wait until an Iranian bomb becomes a reality before launching a pre-emptive strike.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad snubbed the most recent Russian diplomatic efforts to address the uranium enrichment program conundrum. Ahmadinejad’s haughty defiance may have cost Iran some of Russia’s opposition to UN sanctions. Russia has voiced displeasure with the disclosure of the secret nuclear facility in the city of Qom and Tehran’s obstinate refusal to engage in the UN-brokered talks.

Still, Kremlin officials claim no evidence exists that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon and Russia opposes additional Western pressure against the regime. Russian officials believe only they, of the P5+1 coalition of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, maintains influence with Iran’s Islamic leaders.

Russia called for another round of talks, and China, with its financial, armament and energy ties to the Islamic Republic and its veto power, continues to block UN sanctions, saying further diplomatic talks should be conducted prior to discussing economic measures.

While more time is wasted on fruitless negotiations, Ahmadinejad has signed agreements with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez for fuel supplies as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has bipartisan support for sanctions against companies selling fuel and weaponry to Iran.

As time passes, Iran’s menace to Middle Eastern stability grows and the effectiveness of sanctions lessens. Clearly, a UN solution will not be forthcoming. If the U.S. fails to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the hard-line attitudes held by Israel and Iran make the birthplace of three major religions the place where nuclear war becomes a reality.

This is the opportunity for President Obama to show the United States and the world that he is the leader he hoped to be when voters elected him.