Bolton is right again

From The Telegraph:

Iran should be attacked before it develops nuclear weapons, America's former ambassador to the United Nations said yesterday.

John Bolton, who still has close links to the Bush administration, told The Daily Telegraph that the European Union had to "get more serious" about Iran and recognise that its diplomatic attempts to halt Iran's enrichment programme had failed.

Iran has "clearly mastered the enrichment technology now...they're not stopping, they're making progress and our time is limited", he said. Economic sanctions "with pain" had to be the next step, followed by attempting to overthrow the theocratic regime and, ultimately, military action to destroy nuclear sites.

Mr Bolton's stark warning appeared to be borne out yesterday by leaks about an inspection by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of Iran's main nuclear installation at Natanz on Sunday.

The experts found that Iran's scientists were operating 1,312 centrifuges, the machines used to enrich uranium. If Iran can install 3,000, it will need about one year to produce enough weapons grade uranium for one nuclear bomb.

Experts had judged that Iran would need perhaps two years to master the technical feat of enriching uranium using centrifuges - and then another two years to produce enough material to build a weapon.

But the IAEA found that Iran has already managed to enrich uranium to the four per cent purity needed for power stations. Weapons-grade uranium must reach a threshold of 84 per cent purity.

Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA's head, said the West's goal of halting the enrichment programme had been "overtaken by events". Iran had probably mastered this process and "the focus now should be to stop them from going to industrial scale production".

American lost a great asset when the clueless loons in the Democrat controlled Senate refused to confirm him as our UN Ambassador.

The truth is that we should have already attacked Iran and deposed its insane theocratic government. Then we should have moved into Syria. Even if a diplomatic means could be found to get Iran to stop its nuclear program invasion would still be the right thing to do because as long as the mad mullahs control Iran it will generate one international crisis after another and continue to use its oil wealth to support international Islamist terrorism.

Then after the "Shiite crescent" has been defanged the US needs to turn its attention to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are using their vast oil wealth to aggressively export Wahabi Islam across the surface of the earth. Wahabism was the inspiration for Osama bin Laden and provides the religious/ideological framework for much of the terrorist activity in the world today.

America is continually accused of being an "empire". How would a real empire have dealt with a threat of the magnitude represented by militant Islam? Can anyone imagine Augustus Caesar wringing his hands in impotent frustration in the face of such provocation?