Sunday’s Wall Street Journal posted an opinion piece by Eliot A. Cohen, a teacher at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a former counselor of the State Department.  Mr. Cohen believes that the options on how to handle the fact that Iran is developing nuclear weapons are limited and time sensitive. 

Mr. Cohen points out:

“Understandably, the U.S. government has hoped for a middle course of sanctions, negotiations and bargaining that would remove the problem without the ugly consequences. This is self-delusion. Yes, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy stood side by side with President Barack Obama in Pittsburgh and talked sternly about lines in the sand; and yes, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev hinted that some kind of sanctions might, conceivably, be needed. They said the same things to, and with, President George W. Bush.”

Time is not on our side.  Eventually we are going to be faced with a choice of an American or Israeli strike against the nuclear installations or a nuclear Iran.  Unfortunately, the current administration does not understand that force is the language of power in the Middle East.  A lack of force is seen as weakness and as something to be exploited. 

Mr. Cohen concludes:

“It is, therefore, in the American interest to break with past policy and actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Not by invasion, which this administration would not contemplate and could not execute, but through every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard. And if, as is most likely, President Obama presides over the emergence of a nuclear Iran, he had best prepare for storms that will make the squawks of protest against his health-care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day.”

It would be nice to think that events half a world away would not impact our everyday lives, but that is simply not true.  Israel may be willing to take the risk that we are not willing to take.  The conseqences would be dire for millions of people–radioactivity in the atmosphere because of atomic bombs going out of and into Israel, the death of millions of people, and a total disruption of all international trade.  Unfortunately, the consequences of Iran having nuclear weapons are also dire.  Even if Iran chooses not to use its nukes, the threat of that use would embolden Iran in ways that would be detrimental to the Middle East and eventually to the entire world.