Head in Sand

Barry Posen writes that we can live with a nuclear Iran. Oh really? How can he reconcile that with the insane statements coming from Iran's mullahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a daily basis?

The Iranian routine is as follows:
Monday - call the US the great Satan
Tuesday - threaten Israel with destruction
Wednesday - deny the Holocaust existed but claim that Iran will finish the job
Thursday - threaten Israel if the US takes any military action against Iran's nuclear facilities
Friday - play cheat and retreat with the Russians, claiming that they're using the nuclear materials for peaceful purposes; threaten Israel with destruction
Saturday - claim that the deal with the Russians is far too restrictive and that nuclear power is Iran's inalienable right
Sunday - threaten Israel, meddle in Iraq, and call the IAEA/UN ineffectual.

Posen is treating Iran as though its leadership is rational and will behave in the same way that other nuclear powers might. That flies in the face of what the Iranians themselves have been saying for months now. Their leadership continues to make statements with religious implications as to what they intend to do upon obtaining nuclear weapons. They want to use them.

In a way, the Iranians are acting rationally. They've got goals and accountabilities. It's just that they're willing to start a regional conflagration in order to achieve their religious goals. They would sacrifice their population to wipe out their enemies, and they've shown a willingness to use their population as cannon fodder time and time again. The Iranian military lost more than a million people in its 8-year war with Iraq, often in mass attacks against fortified positions reminiscent of World War I trench warfare. Children often led the tank platoons to set off the mines. This is a regime that has absolutely no interest in the welfare of its people.

And that makes for a dangerous dance partner at the nuclear ball.

UPDATE:
The IAEA is saying that Iran is testing their gas centrifuges, but can't say whether the Iranians are militarizating the technology or not.

Iran has begun testing 20 centrifuges at its Natanz pilot uranium-enrichment plant, pressing ahead with efforts to purify nuclear fuel in defiance of world pressure, a nuclear watchdog report said on Monday.

The confidential report by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran had also begun substantial renovations of Natanz’s system handling UF6 gas, which is converted by centrifuges into enriched atomic fuel.

It said the cascade of 20 centrifuge machines began to undergo vacuum testing on Feb. 22.

How can anyone stand idly by while Iran pursues this technology and hopes for an outcome based on the least bad option? This isn't a policy. It's a deathwish. The IAEA claims that they can't figure out what's going on because Iran isn't being transparent. Duh. Why would Iran want to be transparent? That goes against their own self interest.

Cheat and retreat is their policy, and they will do just enough to give Iran's scientists more time to perfect the necessary technologies and start producing the weapons grade materials. By then, the Iranians are figuring that the world would have no choice but to accept the outcome of a nuclear weapons capable Iran.

UPDATE:
Vital Perspectives has the full text of the IAEA report (via Michelle Malkin).

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has more.

And don't forget that Iran has common ground with the likes of Hamas and Hizbullah.