A Nuclear Iran

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran is now a nuclear state. The nation, he says, has produced its first batch of enriched uranium and will not be bullied by the West into abandoning its nuclear program. President Obama, are you listening?

There can be little doubt that this is to a degree mere posturing. Ahmadinejad needs to show a brave face, especially in the light of the growing protests against his regime within his own borders. He also had the foresight to assert that Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons. The Iranian leader is clearly trying to play to the pacifists of the world; the enriched uranium is for electricity only, and although Iran could enrich it to weapons grade they will, he tells us.

Have we ever been able, in all of human history, to trust a despot? That is the question which we must not shy away from answering in our dealings with Terhan. Put definitively, can we trust Ahmadinejad? Said in even more precise terms, can we trust our own President to face the threat of a dictator?

All we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan will fail if we cannot contain Iran. Time, as always, will tell.

Let's hope that it does tell as it did in the 1940's.