Could this also be the U.K. announcing the schedule for action in Iran?

November? November? That month seems important for some reason. The date "November 2" seems to ring a bell. Maybe Mr. Blair was not polled in that world election poll released yesterday.

And if the deadline passes with Iran continuing to stonewall, does anyone here want to bet that the EU policy will be anything other than another deadline?

Bob - Is there any doubt that the schedule for this diplomacy was set by the Bush administration? Nov. 2 is the day we switch from diplomacy alone to preparing for the application of hard power.

PJ

No doubt in my mind.

November if Bush just says do it. Spring/Summer of 2005 if he decides to build a coalition and try to get the EU and UN on board.

Kerry is going to have to change his talking points on Iran prior to the debates (and they will have to muzzle Edwards as well).

What, exactly, "hard power" is the US going to apply to Iran ?

We could bomb their reactor, which would delay them a few years, but they would just build a secret one, as Libya did.

IMO, Iran's not on the front burner in '05.
North Korea and Syria appear far more likely.

Anyhow, one or two, (or three or four), nuclear devices, and no missiles, certainly isn't going to stop any American invasion, should it come to that.
So, we have time to work it other ways, first.

We're having enough trouble with Iraq. What could possibly make anyone think we could invade Iran without a significant increase in defense spending and probably conscription? It is 4 times as large in size and population.

As for Syria, we just need to let the Israelis handle it as they see best. Our interests are exactly congruent.

North Korea is a problem without a solution.

The lesson learned from Iraq: take out the leadership and leave.

Michael:

Libya was nowhere near having a bomb or the capacity to deliver it.

OJ,

Isn't that what we did in Afghanistan in the early 90s, which led to Taliban governance? That worked really well.

The way to handle Iran is very simple. First, divide up Iraq into its three parts. Kurdistan would be up and running as an independent state. It would be a friend to America, a non-Arab Sunni republic more or less. The Turks due to their failure to cooperate and their inept government have forfeited any right to complain.

Second, allow the Shi'ites to set up there state around Basra and let them run it as they wish. Iran backed al-Sadr, who had previously been a stooge for Saddam. If left to his own devices, Sistani can more than take care of al-Sadr, and Muslims unlike Americans have no problem murdering people in mosques in Muslim holy cities. The Sistani example of Shi'ite Muslims governing themselves without Khomeinist nonsense will be appealing to ordinary Iranians and they will topple the mullahs themselves. American military interference will only cause all Iranians to 'rally round the flag.' And that we do not want.

Third, let the Saddamites run an impoverished rump state around Baghdad. If they say 'Boo', their neighbors can squash them with our blessings.

oj:

True, but we didn't even know Libya had a nuclear programme, much less where the facilities were, until they showed us.

Bart:

North Korea has several solutions, none of which will make everyone happy, all of which will make North Korea very unhappy, as well as probably non-existent.

A "rump state", Sunnistan, with ten million inhabitants and the largest city in the region, might not be as poor or as easily overwhelmed militarily as you think it will be.

Bart:

No. In Afghanistan we trained terrorists to drive out invaders. That's why we can't be an effective one ourselves.

Michael,

Yeah, we could nuke em, but the wind currents make that an iffy proposition. If the winds carry the fallout in any direction, the impact on the American economy will be drastic. Do we really want large industrial areas of Japan, China and South Korea to be irradiated.

After reading about the unhappiness with German unification and the obvious problems, one should really be circumspect about Korean re-unification. North Korea is much larger, relatively speaking, than the DDR and is in infinitely worse shape. South Koreans who think about the matter start having heart palpitations and headaches when unification gets discussed. It's a real nightmare.

I really don't care about the fate of Sunnistan, so long as it's not used as a terrorist base for attacks on the West or to disrupt the flow of oil. They can eat each other for all I care.

OJ,

In Afghanistan, we left before we managed the peace, leaving a group of terrorist factions to fight for power. The most brutal bunch, though probably not the worst, came out on top. Slicing off the Uzbek and Tadzhik regions and uniting them with Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan might be a start to a rational policy. The best we can really hope for in Afghanistan is a weak central government and an agreement by the tribal chieftains, and gangsters ,who make up that Star Wars Bar known as the Loya Jirga, not to allow terrorists to function in their satrapies.