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US says no to nuclear power plant to Pakistan

WASHINGTON: The US has categorically told Pakistan that it would not get any atomic power plant or civilian nuclear deal on the lines of the one signed with India.

“The United States is working closely with Pakistan to help meet its growing needs. Nuclear power is not currently part of our discussions,” a senior Administration official told PTI.

Leaders of Pakistan, who have been pitching hard for a nuclear power plant, have been told about in recently.

The senior Administration official, preferring anonymity, said the US has also told Pakistan that there is no way that they can get a civilian nuclear deal similar to the one the Obama Administration has signed with India.

The Indo-US civilian nuclear deal is specific to India only and there is no thinking going on in the administration to create a template for it, the official said.

Moreover, given the past experiences that the US had with Pakistan on nuclear proliferation issue and the episode of disgraced Pakistani scientist A Q Khan accused of transferring sensitive technologies abroad, the official said both the top American lawmakers and those in the US Government have serious concerns about the safety of Pakistani nuclear weapons.

Under these circumstances, it is quite difficult to consider “that (nuclear power)” option for Pakistan, the officials pointed out.

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US says no to nuclear power plant to Pakistan

If sanctions on Iran haven’t worked, why bother again?
By Uriel Heilman · February 21, 2010

The United Nations Security Council, shown in session on Feb. 18, 2010, has passed sanctions legislation three times against Iran but has failed to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. (UN Photo / Eskinder Debebe)

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The United Nations Security Council, shown in session on Feb. 18, 2010, has passed sanctions legislation three times against Iran but has failed to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. (UN Photo / Eskinder Debebe)

NEW YORK (JTA) — For years, sanctions have been the world’s answer to Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Three times already — in 2006, 2007 and 2008 — the U.N. Security Council passed sanctions legislation aimed at obstructing Iran’s nuclear capabilities and prodding the government in Tehran into cooperating.

The result: Iran moved ahead with building clandestine nuclear facilities, installing centrifuges and enriching unranium while refusing full access to international weapons inspectors and turning down deals with the West. Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report saying it had evidence of “past or current undisclosed activities” by Iran to build a nuclear warhead.

Tehran repeatedly has made clear that its policy toward the West — on the nuclear issue and other matters, including last year’s disputed election — is defiance and obduracy, not cooperation or capitulation.

Now, in the face of mounting evidence that Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb continues unabated, pro-Israel groups and U.S. and European governments again are pushing for new sanctions.

Given that sanctions haven’t worked in the past, is there any hope that things will be different this time?

“We won’t know the answer until we actually try,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the main U.S. Jewish umbrella group on Mideast-related issues.

“Sanctions can have an impact if they’re the right kind of sanctions, if they’re not going to be put off,” Hoenlein said. “The question is implementation. It’s not moving fast enough. The Iranians only understand one language: They have to understand this is showdown time.”

For now the approach among Jewish organizational leaders who have led the campaign to halt Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is to continue to promote sanctions — both by the United Nations and by individual countries, including the United States. The thinking is that sanctions currently under consideration are considerably tougher than earlier rounds and must be tried before any other options can be explored.

“If we’re willing to put meaningful, painful sanctions in place, it can work,” said Josh Block, spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has been the main lobbying group pushing Congress for sanctions on Iran.

“Do we have the ability to create significant economic pain for the Iranian government? Yes. Are they willing to change their behavior based on that impact? We don’t know,” Block acknowledged.

The new U.N. sanctions would target Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and more severely restrict Iran’s banking industry. For enactment, nine of the U.N. Security Council’s members must vote for them, and none of the five permanent, veto-wielding members — China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France — can block them.

Russia, an early holdout, is now sending signals it favors new sanctions, but China has yet to agree. Four more yes votes would be necessary from the 10 rotating members: Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina , Brazil, Gabon, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey and Uganda. The four votes are not yet in place, insiders say, and the date for a vote on sanctions continues to be pushed back.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress is set to pass broad unilateral sanctions that would target Iran’s energy sector.

As the day of reckoning with a nuclear Iran fast approaches, advocates in the Jewish community are being forced to confront the question of where to go beyond sanctions.

There are no sure answers. Sanctions have not worked so far, and the U.S. administration doesn’t appear close to considering the military option.

Even if Israel were to circumvent the United States and strike Iran, it would be hard to wipe out the country’s nuclear facilities, which are thought to include sites that are hidden, underground, scattered and heavily fortified.

Some Jewish groups have begun talking about how to live with a nuclear Iran.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the founder and president of The Israel Project, said that even if sanctions couldn’t stop Iran from going nuclear, they still could help deter a nuclear Iran from using its weapons.

“The idea that the game is over if Iran has a nuclear device is mistaken,” Mizrahi told JTA. “As long as Iran hasn’t used a nuclear device to shoot anybody or give it to terrorists, we still have to give it a full-court press.”

It’s possible, she noted, that Iran already has obtained a nuclear device from North Korea or other clandestine methods.

“Even if they were to have a nuclear device and a rocket today, it would still be useful to have sanctions,” Mizrahi said. “They can still be dissuaded from using their weapons and giving them up.”

With the time remaining for effective sanctions to have an impact on the Iranian regime dwindling, is it time to go to Plan B?

“There are plan B’s,” Hoenlein said. “We have not advocated military action. We don’t believe that’s our role. We believe all options should be on the table, including that. If they don’t believe all options are on the table, they will never move.”

Plan B, he said, could entail anything from a naval blockade to military strikes. The United States does not yet appear to be at that point, but of course Israel at any point could move to its own Plan B.

Even as they concede that serious questions remain about the efficacy of new sanctions and other options, U.S. Jewish organizational leaders are canvassing the country and holding meetings around the world to warn about the dangers of a nuclear Iran — and not just so they can feel like they’re doing something or to give their audiences a reason to lay awake at night.

“I’m not trying to suggest this as a panacea,” said Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a policy umbrella group. “We still have to get the sanctions thing passed.”

Talking about the dangers of a nuclear Iran can energize people to lobby their elected representatives, press the issue at consulates and embassies, and talk to associates with business interests overseas about the imperative to isolate Iran, he said.

The point, several Jewish officials said, is to not give up.

“Because of our history, because of our teachings, I think we’ve been taught that one cannot just sit by and watch evil win,” Gutow said, citing Theodor Herzl’s famous “Im Tirtzu” line – “If you will it, it is no dream.”

Mizrahi also cited Herzl.

“I’m not optimistic about any of these things, but as Golda Meir put it, Jews don’t have the option of being pessimists,” Mizrahi said. “If every time the world said it’s impossible for Israel to accomplish something, if they’d listened Israel wouldn’t have gone back to reclaim the land, drain the swamps and build the country. I believe very strongly in what Herzl said.”

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jta.org

Partners against Iran
By JPOST EDITORIAL
16/02/2010 23:03

Mullen’s visit underlined Washington’s intensifying effort to keep closely coordinated with Israel.
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The visit to Israel this week by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, underlined the growing urgency of the Iranian nuclear challenge, and the Obama administration’s intensifying effort to keep closely coordinated with Israel while grappling with that threat.

Mullen’s visit coincided with the announcement that Vice President Joe Biden will also come to Israel in the near future, again for high-level talks largely focused on the Iranian issue.The visit also came as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured Qatar and Saudi Arabia in order to shore up support for American diplomatic and military efforts in the region, ahead of visits by three of her top deputies and a reported upcoming trip by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel.

The rhetoric from Washington is firm: Clinton declared to Iran that the US would “not stand idly by while you pursue a nuclear program that can be used to threaten your neighbors and even beyond.” Mullen was more curt still: Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon, [or] nuclear capability,” he said here.

At the same time, however, there is profound concern in Israel that the fine words, even backed up by a new seriousness in seeking more effective economic sanctions, will prove insufficient to deter the ayatollahs.

Clearly, the flurry of visits by high-level US officials marks a heightened era of dialogue between Washington and Jerusalem, as the US steps up its campaign to resolve the Iranian crisis without a resort to force.

Mullen warned Israel tellingly of the “unintended consequences” of a military strike. Biden, the former head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, will doubtless also stress the administration’s conviction that there are still effective ways, and sufficient time, to force the Islamic Republic’s hand before we arrive at the stark choice: a nuclear Iran, or military intervention to prevent it.

FOR NOW, President Barack Obama has yet to add Israel to his travel plans. And eight months after his landmark visit to Cairo, and his outreach address to the Muslim world, his absence is keenly felt here. Obama the candidate received the usual rock-star treatment when he visited – and took time to tour Sderot – in 2008. Obama the president is a more suspect commodity – a friend of Israel and guardian of the strategic partnership, to be sure, but also a leader who has been publicly at odds with ours over the dimensions of a building freeze beyond the ’67 lines and over his assessment that progress on the Palestinian front can produce leverage on Iran rather than the other way round.

A presidential visit in the near future would certainly prove reassuring to many Israelis, and would disarm those critics who assert that our well-being is not a sufficiently high priority for hisWhite House.

But whether their face-to-face meetings take place here or in Washington, there can be no doubting that further direct consultations between Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu will be vital in the coming months – as the US president strives to force Iran to change course, and the possibility of this effort failing raises ever-greater concerns in Israel.

Israel has been publicly supportive of the American effort at engagement with Iran, even as it has privately complained about the lack of firm parameters guiding that engagement, the fudging of deadlines, the apparent capacity for Iran to exploit a well-meaning president’s desire for a diplomatic solution in order to buy time and close in on the nuclear weapons goal.

Ultimately, Israel must and will take the decisions it feels necessary to safeguard its basic security interests. Ultimately, Israel will gauge the risks, assess the consequences, and act accordingly.

Today, in mid-February 2010, the US and Israel remain shoulder-to-shoulder in seeking biting sanctions against Teheran, to obviate the recourse to the use of force. It is encouraging to see the succession of candid, straight-talking, high-level visits bolstering that coordination. It is a partnership that needs to be maintained at the very highest level as well.

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Partners against Iran

As mutual fear, mistrust and polarisation increases between Iran and Israel, an arms race between the two sworn enemies is gathering momentum.

Central to this is the Russian-made S-300 missile system.

It is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft missile systems in the world today and air power experts say it represents a formidable defence against conventional aircraft.

In 2005, Iran sought to buy five batteries of the S-300 from Russia in a deal believed to be worth around $800 million.

The S-300 would significantly boost Iran’s defence capability at a time when it is concerned about the US military’s presence in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan and Israeli threats to target its nuclear facilities.

But the S-300 deal has yet to go through and Israel has been engaging in some diplomatic wrangling in an attempt to ensure that it does not.

In early June 2009, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Russian-speaking foreign minister, visited Moscow.

He was on a mission to convince Russia to put an end to its arms deals with Iran and Syria and, in particular, to halt the sale and delivery of Russia’s S-300 missile system to Iran.

Lieberman had a bargaining chip: If Russia went ahead with the sale to Iran, Israel might continue to provide hi-tec weapons to neighbouring Georgia, which engaged Russia in a war last year.

Filmmaker Abdallah el-Binni investigates this high-stakes game of brinkmanship as it threatens to spread to other countries in the region.

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Israel Countdown Against Iran – 01 October 09 – Part 1

Obama names special envoy to pan-Islamic body
by Acil Tabbara Acil Tabbara – 2 hrs 20 mins ago

DOHA (AFP) – US President Barack Obama on Saturday named Rashad Hussain as his special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, aiming to build on pledges to restore ties with the Muslim world.

In a recorded video message to the seventh annual US-Islamic World Forum meeting in the Qatari capital, Obama said he wanted to deepen partnerships with the Muslim world “and to develop others.”

“I’m proud to announce today that I am appointing my special envoy to the OIC Rashad Hussain,” said Obama, who opened his message with the Muslim greeting of “Assalaamu Alaykum” (peace be with you).

“As an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff, Rashad has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo.”

In June 2009, just a few months after his inauguration, Obama travelled to Egypt to deliver an address aimed at restarting US relations with Muslims worldwide after eight rocky years under his predecessor George W. Bush.

“I laid out a vision where we all embrace our responsibilities to build a world that is more peaceful and secure,” Obama told the forum in Doha, organised by the Brookings think-tank’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Qatar’s foreign affairs ministry

Washington has since been “responsibly ending the war in Iraq,” while “in Afghanistan and beyond, we are forging partnerships to isolate violent extremists, reduce corruption and to promote good governance and development,” he said.

“It has only been eight months since Cairo, and much remains to be done. But I believe we’ve laid the groundwork to turn those pledges into action.”

Obama, who has made the elusive search for Middle East peace a top priority of his administration, also renewed his commitment to seeking a two-state solution for the Palestinians.

“We remain unyielding in pursuit of a two-state solution that recognises the rights and security of Israelis and Palestinians,” he vowed.

But he acknowledged the path ahead would not be easy, admitting “the United States and Muslims around the world have often slipped into a cycle of misunderstanding and mistrust that can lead to conflict rather than cooperation.

“Fully realising the new beginning we envision will take a long-term commitment. But we have begun,” Obama said.

“Now, it falls to us all, governments and individuals, to do the hard work that must be done turning words into deeds and Writing the Next Chapter in the ties between us, with faith in each other, on the basis of mutual respect.”

Hussain, who has been acting as Obama’s deputy associate counsel, said he was honoured to have been appointed to the post.

“As part of his commitment to continue to seek a new beginning with Muslim communities around the world, and to expand upon the partnerships he outlined in Cairo, I am honoured and humbled that the president has asked me to serve as his Special Envoy to the OIC,” he said in a statement.

George W. Bush formally named the first US envoy to the OIC in February 2008, appointing Texas entrepreneur Sada Cumber.

The OIC, based in the Saudi city of Jeddah, with its 57 members is the world’s largest Islamic assembly.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was leaving Washington on Saturday to attend the conference the next day with other senior US officials, The Brookings Institution said.

The aim of the conference was to bring “leaders from across the Muslim world for an intensive three-day dialogue with key US officials, societal leaders and policy experts,” it said.

At the 2008 US-Islamic forum, delegates voiced support for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, although some warned against expecting any radical policy change should he win the White House.

A year into his administration, Obama has yet to achieve any significant momentum on stalled peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and Muslim audiences are now less receptive to his promise of a “new beginning” with the Muslim world.

Obama names special envoy to pan-Islamic body

Analysis: Iran, West deceiving each other about nuke program

Iran under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty advances step by step toward military nuclear status, disguising its intentions all along the way.

In a January 31 television interview, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced out of the blue that Iran had agreed to the uranium exchange deal that it had rejected repeatedly since October 2009. This announcement came several days after it was reported that the US was deploying missile defense systems in the Gulf.

However, on Sunday, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran would begin to enrich uranium by itself, to a level of 20 percent, and that it had attained laser technology for uranium enrichment.

The Iranian daily Kayhan, which is close to Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei, even declared that once Teheran enriches uranium to 20%, the West will not be able to stop it at that level of enrichment, and would have to negotiate with Iran over higher levels of enrichment.

These developments reveal deception by both parties – Iran and the West – vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Iran under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty advanced step by step toward military nuclear status, disguising its intentions all along the way.

As for the West, it is presenting its policy as aimed at helping Iran, while its diplomatic measures, and especially the uraniumexchange deal, are really aimed at hampering Teheran’s nuclear progress. This deepens Iran’s distrust, for it understands the proposal’s real purpose.

Why won’t Iran hand over its uranium?

In the past months, Iran has adamantly rejected the proposal that the West presents as aimed at helping it by providing it with 20% enriched uranium for its research reactor in Teheran.

The reason for this refusal is that, according to the West’s intention, the uranium handed over would indeed be enriched to a higher level, but at the same time would be altered so that it could not be enriched further for military use – and this is a deal that Iran refused to accept.

In their public statements, Iran’s spokesmen do not bring up this point, but they have stated repeatedly that they do not trust the West. For example, Majlis speaker Ali Larijani warned at a February 6 conference in Teheran that the West was trying to deceive Iran with the nuclear deal but that the West should know that his country is not falling for it: “The truth is that you [Westerners] are conducting a sort of political deceit in order to separate Iran from [its] enriched uranium… But you need to know… that the Iranians are not naive.”

It should be further noted that Iran has no need for 1,200 kg. of 20%-enriched uranium, which is the quantity arbitrarily set by the West in the deal. The Teheran research reactor requires only 30 kg. of 20%-enriched uranium for its operations, and this quantity is equal to about 400 kg. of 5%-enriched uranium; furthermore, this quantity will last it until the reactor ceases to be operational, in about a decade.

Iran’s position is that if the West does indeed want only to help Iran, as it says, then Teheran does not need to enrich more than 400 kg., but the West is demanding that Iran hand over 1,200 kg., which constitutes 75% of its enriched uranium stock. This demand proves that the West wants to maintain its nuclear military hegemony and to prevent Iran from attaining military nuclear status. For this reason, Iran is adamant that it will not hand over its strategic reservesto the West.

The position presented in recent days by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki focuses on the ongoing dispute between Iran and the superpowers vis-à-vis the quantity of lower-level enriched uranium that Teheran would hand over for enrichment.

At the 46th Munich Security Conference (February 5-7), Mottaki portrayed as likely Iran’s acceptance of a deal, and said that it and the IAEA had already agreed to the nuclear deal with a third country and that all that remained was to set the time, place, and quantity of uranium that Iran would hand over. However, he stressed that “it is the Iranian side that will set the scope [of the uranium]exchange [deal], with attention to its own needs” and that “the quantity of nuclear fuel [enriched to 3.5% that Iran will agree to transport from its territory] will be in accordance with Iran’s needs, and the moment that Iran announces what this quantity is, the deal will be able to go ahead.”

Nevertheless, an Iranian official told the Iranian news agency Fars that Teheran had not changed its position toward the deal proposed at the Vienna conference, on October 19-21, 2009, despite reports in recent days about a “softer” stance being adopted vis-à-vis the proposal.

In addition, Ahmadinejad announced in an interview on Iranian television that Teheran does not oppose an uranium exchange deal outside Iranian soil, adding that circles in Iran had raised an unnecessary stink over the issue; however, he ignored the issue on which Iran and the West disagree – that is, the quantity of enriched uranium that Teheran is willing to hand over.

Ahmadinejad: I ordered 20% enrichment

At the same time, in a step typical of Iran’s nuclear policy, Ahmadinejad launched a new phase in Teheran’s struggle against the superpowers with his defiant February 7 declaration that he had already ordered the start of 20% uranium enrichment – thus obviating the need for dialogue with the West or for compliance with the nuclear deal.

At the same venue, a conference titled “Iran’s Laser Technology Achievements,” Ahmadinejad said: “I ordered the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization [Ali Akbar Salehi] to begin enriching uranium to 20%, but the path of dialogue remains open.”

He added: “Iran has attained the ability to enrich uranium using laser technology, and with this method it is possible to perform enrichment faster and more accurately, and to any [enrichment] level – but actually we do not plan to use this method.”

He continued, “Of course, if these countries [i.e. the 5+1] come to us without preconditions, the way to an exchange deal is still open.”

The next day, Salehi said that on February 9, Iran would begin to enrich uranium at 20% at the Natanz facility, and that despite its ability to enrich uranium to any level it desires, Iran preferred the option of acquiring the nuclear fuel plates from a foreign country. In addition, he declared that Iran would construct, within the year (i.e., by March 2011), 10 uranium enrichment centers.

The conservative daily Kayhan, which is close to Khamenei, even stated in a February 9 editorial that the West had missed the opportunity to stop Iran at 5% enrichment, and that the minute Iran enriches uranium to 20%, the West will not be able to stop it from advancing further. At that point, Iran will not agree to stop at 20%, and the negotiations will be over enrichment to a higher level.

It should be noted that Iran possesses 1,600 kg of 5%-enriched uranium (5% is the level permitted under IAEA regulations for generating power; the country must announce that it will be enriching it and must obtain advance approval). However, it is continuing its intensive work to enrich more uranium, even though it has no plant or nuclear reactor that requires such quantities of enriched uranium for operation. Furthermore, the Bushehr reactor, which has not yet begun operating, does not require locally enriched uranium, because under the agreement that Iran signed with Moscow in 2005, Moscow is providing the fuel rods to operate it, and Iran has been receiving them since 2007.

In these circumstances, it is very peculiar that Salehi announced that Iran will construct 10 additional uranium enrichment centers; it means that Iran can be suspected of enriching uranium for military purposes.

The West’s weakness

Again and again, the West has called on Iran to accept its ultimatums, which Iran knows are toothless; this approach exposes the West’s, and particularly the US’s and Europe’s, inability to deal with Iran on vital issues of global security and stability.

The West’s unwillingness to publicly acknowledge that the “deal” that it proposed is not really aimed at helping Iran, as it claims, but rather at preventing Iran from using the enriched uranium for military purposes, strips the West of its credibility vis-à-vis Teheran.

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Iran, West deceiving each other about nuke program

How to save the Obama presidency – bomb Iran
BY DANIEL PIPES
02/02/2010 23:50

Article from JPost
President needs dramatic gesture to change perception of him as lightweight ideologue.
Talkbacks (61)
I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear and whose policies I work against. But here is a way for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the US and its allies.

If Obama’s personality, identity and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.

This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama’s attempts to “reset” his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.

He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge and where he can trump expectations.

Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can order the US military to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity.

Circumstances are propitious. First, US intelligence agencies have reversed the preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that claimed with “high confidence” that Teheran had “halted its nuclear weapons program.” No one (other than the Iranian rulers and their agents) denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a nuclear arsenal.

Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Teheran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Or they could launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the US, devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to America’s friends and enemies.

THIRD, POLLING shows long-standing American backing for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.

• A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll in January 2006 found that 57% of Americans favored military intervention if Teheran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.

• A Zogby International poll in October 2007 found that 52% of likely voters supported a US military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29% opposed such a step.

• McLaughlin & Associates in May 2009 asked whether people would support “using the [US] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon”; 58% of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30% opposed it.

• Fox News in September 2009 asked: “Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?” Sixty-one percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28% opposed it.

• Pew Research Center in October 2009 asked which is more important, “to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action” or “to avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons”; of 1,500 respondents, 61% favored the first reply and 24% the second.

Not only does a strong majority – 57%, 52%, 58%, 61% and 61% – already favor using force, but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, pushing that number much higher.

Fourth, were the US strike limited to taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities, and not aspiring to regime change, it would require few “boots on the ground” and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack politically more palatable.

Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush’s meandering early months, a strike on the Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama’s feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider and conservatives swoon.

But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now or, on Obama’s watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.

The writer (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.