Ben Buckman.net

Iran has hardened its stance on its nuclear program, with its new negotiator declaring all previous discussions "irrelevant" and future negotiation "unnecessary." The Europeans are pissed:

The hard-line position from the Iranian side was clear confirmation that Iran would not compromise on this issue, the French official said, adding, “We have in front of us the real Iran.”
An official involved in the talks put it even more bluntly, saying, “We can’t do business with these guys at this point.”

I have long been critical of the Bush administration's bellicose rhetoric on Iran, refusal to negotiate directly, and lack of credibility on any intelligence matters. But at some point the world will need to make a decision whether it can live with a nuclear Iran or not. Until Iran allows unfettered access by the IAEA inspectors to determine the true purpose and capability of their programs, they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Their strategy of buying time, presumably until their nuclear program becomes a fait accompli, is obviously dangerous. More sanctions are in order, but their effect is questionable.

A unilateral American attack on Iran is the last thing we should do now, however, for so many reasons. It will guarantee the hardliners there become the most powerful bloc; any hope of Ahmedinejad losing popular support will be lost. It will confirm the jihadists' worldview and incite terrorism on an unprecedented scale. There will be no "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" nonsense anymore - there aren't enough troops available to occupy Iran, so this would be a hit-and-run deal. The day after the first strike, we can expect wars to erupt in Lebanon, Gaza, and Pakistan; it could very well set off World War 3, in the form of dozens of terrorist/guerilla insurgencies that break out across the globe and expand.

All that being the case, however, a moment of decision on Iran will have to come. And if the regime is deemed too irrational, too insane, too fundamentalist to trust with nuclear weapons, then military action will have to be considered. And we'd better have the French on board this time. A global coalition would be absolutely critical; it would need U.N. backing and international funding. It would have to eliminate the Iranian regime and replace it with an internationally recognized, legitimate government, that a majority of Iranians can plausibly support. In other words, this would have to be done right in every way the Iraq War was done wrong. That means it'll have to wait for the Bush administration to be out of office. We're talking mid-2009 at the earliest. And even then the costs, risks and complications of such an operation are incalculable.