NOT SO FAST, BARACK - AT 7:48 A.M. ET:  Related to the story just below, about a possible Israeli strike on Iran, is a Bloomberg report on Iran's attitude.  It is rigid, uncompromising, as it has been for years.  There is no sign of daylight:

July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian leaders are turning inward and rejecting engagement with the West as they blame outsiders for street protests, even as President Barack Obama’s administration pushes for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.

The leadership has denounced foreign governments as “enemies” for encouraging demonstrations over last month’s presidential election and plans to put a British Embassy employee on trial for inciting the protests, which were violently suppressed. A French student also has been detained on spy charges.

And...

"It’s much harder for any engagement strategy to be successful” in the post-election atmosphere, said former U.S. diplomat Mark Fitzpatrick, who now heads the non-proliferation program at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The regime is increasingly isolated since the election and more determined than ever to reject international demands that it give up uranium enrichment, a prelude to developing a nuclear weapon, said Fitzpatrick, who was deputy assistant secretary of State for non-proliferation until 2005.

COMMENT:  And that is why Obama's "engagement" strategy is doomed to failure - unless he's just using it as a propaganda tool, to demonstrate that he's done everything possible before taking further "action."  Problem is, that further action may amount to nothing more than sanctions that Iran will proceed to ignore.

What then?  And what if Iran already has the bomb by the time we 1) impose more sanctions, 2) give them time "to work," and 3) commission studies to study the previous studies that studied their effectiveness?

We will live, as the Chinese say, in interesting times.

July 16, 2009