Exactly What Would More Talking Do?

On CNN’s website I read the results of the IAEA findings regarding Iran’s nuclear intentions. Tell me history doesn’t repeat itself over and over.

“The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said Thursday he agrees with U.S. intelligence estimates that Iran is three to eight years from being able to make nuclear arms and urged the United States and other Security Council members to abandon "rhetoric" in their bid to get Tehran to scale down its nuclear ambitions.”

There’s a line in the movie, Tin Cup, near the end where our “hero” is in contention for the U.S. Open title; if only he plays the smart shot, lays up and takes par. He’s sitting close enough to the green where if he makes a nearly perfect shot he’ll walk off with an outright win; but the last couple of times he’s tried that same shot the ball landed in the water hazard. With each swing of the “big dog” another golf ball plunks into the pond and the announcers are jabbering away in disbelief, “Doesn’t he know he can take a drop?”

Down to his last ball, the one he needs to keep from being disqualified from the tournament, his caddy walks up and talks about this fact as the frustrated Tin Cup continues muttering, “I know I can make this shot!”

The caddy replies, “Then what are you waiting for, quit fartin’ around, (except he didn’t say fartin’), and make the shot!”, as if all the previous wasted shots were just “Muligans”. Roy’s last shot clears the pond, rolls down the manicured surface and drops in the hole as the crowd goes crazy for having witnessed the most amazing turn of events in U.S. Open history.

I wanted to capture the picture used in the CNN article, a photograph taken from a high altitude reconnaissance aircraft or spy satellite showing the Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities. The only thing missing from that photograph where the cross hairs of a bomb sight followed by additional photographs showing the impact of several tons of high explosives on Iran’s nuclear facilities along with smoke and debris being dispersed into the desert atmosphere.

Are we so foolish as to believe that the Iranians are playing their nuclear threat as if it were a game of poker, bluffing the entire world all the while holding a pair of fours against the outside chance that one of the more powerful nations might take action?

“ElBaradei said the international community should pursue a dialogue with Tehran.”

“"One way to do that, rather than to continue the rhetoric, is to ... sit down together," he said.”

Sit down together and what; talk some more, play a game of Rock/Paper/Scissors or draw pistols and shoot? What would sitting down with Tehran do that hasn’t already been placed on the table, threaten them with sanctions; just like the UN did with Iraq?

Empty threats by the world powers when dealing with Iran would be the same as folding to a pair of fours. To the world powers, those who keep laying back for par; that’s a little like expecting everything to work out by sitting down with Tehran. What we need is a Tin Cup, someone willing to take the shot.