Probability of Iran getting a nuke; and then terrorists getting and using a nuke — in the next 4 years.

Under Bush — 10%

Under Kerry — 40%.

What is YOUR guess?

In any case, after Tel Aviv (Moscow? Miami? Mumbai? Baghdad?) is nuked, forcible democratization will occur throughout the ME.

The current race is to see if democracy can get there before a nuke is used.

Psssst! I’ve got a “secret” for ya! Iran has a “stealth” nuclear program. It’s true! Fareed Zakaria just said so:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5635447/site/newsweek/

Has he been reading your blog? This quote KILLS me:

It was an excellent agreement in which Iran pledged to stop developing fissile material (the core ingredient of a nuclear bomb) and to keep its nuclear program transparent. The only problem is, Iran has recently announced that it isn’t going to abide by the deal.

I guess it was an “excellent agreement” until the Iranians broke it. Just like the Norks did with their excellent agreement brokered by Jimmy Carter. Who would have thought the Iranians and Norks would break an “excellent agreement?”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. God help us all. And if He won’t help us, I’m confident that John Kerry has a secret plan in the works for France to bail us out.

Francis

In respose to your “paper Tiger” link. Your hope that somehow a international agreement is somehow going to be a cure to the proliferation issue shows that you think that countries like Iran and North Korea are going to follow or respect these treaties.If you spent 5 to 10 years negotiating and bribing these governments you might get them to sign the treaty. The problem is they would break the treaty as soon as they signed it. Look at Irans response to the IAEA.They have given the diplomatic miidle finger to europe and the world and the response of europe is to shrug their shoulders and say “Oh well, we tried and lets write them a nasty note and tell them we are dissapointed with them”.

Look at North Korea. Albright and her team were quite pleased when the Dear Leader signed the agreement to suspend development in exchange for billions in aid.After they signed the agreement they just moved their operations underground and continued them. when we caught them what was Albrights sugggestion? Go back and repeat the negotiation strategy that just failed.

is Bush’s strategy working. Not yet. But the Post is telling Bush to repeat the same failed process. Lets face it. north Korea and Iran have no intention of stopping their plans. Even if you struggle and get them to sign a piece of paper they have no intention of abidding by the rules.If you reward North Korea for breaking the agreement what does he learn? That he can thumb his nose at the world and get money for it. What has Iran learned about the IAEA. that it is the toothless tiger that you accuse Bush of being. if their is an agreement that includes massive punishment for violations then I would be all for it. But if the only punishment is going to be a scolding from Europe then it is a waste of paper.

“Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance” of EU3 efforts, yes; in N. Korea, yes; in Libya, it has been stopped dead and reversed.

The headline is false. QED The proof is left to the student.

The Wapo is funny – it’s Editorial page is often quite even-handed; no friend of Bush but willing to praise on occasion, and more importantly, to point out that Kerry is a BS artist. They also have a number of thoughful conservative columnits (in contrast to the tokenist NYT), although they (and we) suffered a huge loss with the death of Michael Kelly. Then you have the news pages with Dana Milbank et al – biased to a farethewell. It’s almost like they got the editorial and news pages mixed up.

The NYT seems to be a bit more even handed these days while my beloved WaPo goes off the deep end. That’s my read at any rate.