President Bush has, since my last post, condemned the New Yorker magazine's report that he was "seriously" considering a nuclear strike on Iran, as "wildly speculative", and Rumsfeld chimed in that The New Yorker has been dead wrong and way off on many other predictions in the past.


But meanwhile, on Monday this week, Iran announced to the world that they have developed the ability to enrich uranium (i.e., the ability to go way beyond civilian nuclear power capability, and to instead develop weapons-grade plutonium.)

An excellent discussion of the ramifications, and both best-case and worst-case scenarios:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june06/iran_4-11.html

And NBC News broadcast a report the same night , that said that in the worst-case scenario, Iran could have enough enriched uranium to develop a nuclear weapon in 3 years, and have the missile capability within 10 years. But even that worst scenario assumes every test runs perfectly the first time out, which is unlikely.



And another interesting twist, former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich said on Hannity and Colmes last night that the U.S. should complete its mission in Iraq as soon as possible, so that it has the maximum ability to deal with the growing situation in Iran.
Gingrich described the current situation in Iran as "the greatest threat to the United States since Adolf Hitler".