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Nobody knows this better than Iran. The day they test a nuclear weapon the diplomacy window is closed.

Biden's remarks are for consumption by naive and/or stupid people who believe talking solves problems.

"We should be talking to them."
"As long as we're talking we aren't fighting."
"We're still talking!"
"We've reached a critical stage in negotiations."
"We can't understand why talks broke down."
"We need to get these talks restarted."

This progression is the most predictable and the most boring rope-a-dope exercise that politicians and their diplomatic enablers engage in. As far as America is concerned, Iran is going to get a Bomb. The only important thing to Biden and Co. is to look like we actually don't want that to happen enough to do something about it.

'Round midnight, the CIA will suddenly discover their estimates were a full two years off and Iran will have accomplished EXACTLY what its "diplomacy" was designed to achieve. Iran will detonate a test weapon. The CIA will be surprised (maybe really surprised, as with India in 1974, or only pretend surprised as with the Pakistan test in 1998.) There will be hearings on Capitol Hill about this "massive intelligence failure" -- so "massive" that no one will in fact be fired or even disciplined -- and then that story will sink into the background as the full reality of a nuclear armed terrorist state sinks in.

Excellent analysis. It is clear that the Obama administration has accepted the concept of a nuclear armed Iran. They have accepted the thesis that Iran seeks nuclear weapons not to threaten Israel but to protect itself from further devastating conventional invasions primarily from Sunni neighbors such as the experienced in the 1980’s. Israel has been restrained from attacking and has been essentially told to live with the terrifying peace of mutually assured destruction. In any case Obama does not wish to commit the US to a third war in the region. This war could very well be very costly since the Iranians are armed with very sophisticated Chinese shore to ship missiles. Our blue water capital ships are very vulnerable in the narrow confines of the Persian Gulf. This “show” being orchestrated by Obama with Biden as frontman, presupposes one critical assumption. Israel can be restrained and will not act unilaterally. Well that is not certain. Netanyahu takes his responsibility as secular leader and defender of the Jewish people very seriously. He does not accept the ranting of the mullahs as mere rhetoric and does not wish to repeat the tragic mistakes of the German Jewish leaders of the 1920’s who underestimated Hitler. In any case, our politically correct navy should not be patrolling the Persian Gulf and those sailors are at grave risk. Your overall point is extremely well taken. All the post war posturings and hearings will do nothing to correct Obama’s strategic failures or console the families of the dead.