What to do with Iran...

It's funny to see this coming from the LATimes, but it's an op-ed that basically says diplomacy's failed, start bombing Iran. So if sanctions won't work, what's left? The overthrow of the current Iranian regime might offer a silver bullet, but with hard-liners firmly in the saddle in Tehran, any such prospect seems even more remote today than it did a decade ago, when students were demonstrating and reformers were ascendant. Meanwhile, the completion of Iran's bomb grows nearer every day. Our options therefore are narrowed to two: We can prepare to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, or we can use force to prevent it. Former ABC newsman Ted Koppel argues for the former, saying that "if Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it." We should rely, he says, on the threat of retaliation to keep Iran from using its bomb. Similarly, Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria points out that we have succeeded in deterring other hostile nuclear states, such as the Soviet Union and China. Go figure... the MSM runs around in circles screaming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling." I don't know that I'd totally throw in the towel on revolutionary elements within Iran, but time is short. If that's still an option, something needs to happen there fast. Besides that, our options are bleak if we continue to put all our eggs into the diplomacy basket. Do we simply sit back and hope Israel can take out all of Iran's reactors? If that fails we're faced with a nuclear Iran, and what Koppel fails to realize is that this would be more than just a cold war. Iran would be more than willing to pass a nuke off to a terrorist group. Why else could they want an Iranian, Saif Adel, to take bin Laden's place as al Qaeda's leader? That'd certainly be convenient, wouldn't it? And what about the power shifft in the region? Israel's nuclear program is probably the only reason they still exist, along with their willingness to pre-emptively strike at those attempting to develop nukes. Would a nuclear Iran send Iraq's fledgling democracy into a tailspin? And Syria could easily hop on the coat tails of their nieghbor. Syria's going to continue to get bolder as we continue to wring our hands, so we'll get more demands from Syria, like their current demand for a timetable of our withdrawal from Iraq. Should we take bets on what Iran wants to discuss with this summit they've invited Syria and Iraq to? They say it's about the sectarian violence, but if you take what Ahmadinejad tells you at face value, I've got some great beach front property in Arkansas I'd love to sell you. I'd like to keep the "bombing Iran back to the stone age" option on the shelf, but we're painting ourselves into a corner here...