Opinion in Brief

Iran presents an interesting predicament for President Bush, who is currently facing even more criticism for being the boy who cried “nucular bomb.” He’s been busy downplaying all talks of military action – and for good reason. We don’t even have a handle on Iraq after three years, we have no real allies, oil prices are already out of control, we have massive amounts of negative money, etc.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that the country had succeeded in enriching uranium on a small scale. This is necessary to create fuel for nuclear power, Iran’s claimed purpose for the program. But Ahmadinejad has repeatedly stood by his plans to expand the nuclear program, which in theory could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Although the U.N. has demanded that Iran stop its enrichment activity, it can’t exactly use force to back up its demands. So who’ll stand up to Iran should it continue to expand its nuclear potential? Countries in the European Union are obviously not keen on using their militaries for anything (not that that would do much good anyway), and Russia and China aren’t entirely sure that Iran is doing something reprehensible. That leaves us.

But we’ve already bombed the hell out of two Middle Eastern countries quite recently and we can’t prove Iran will build a nuclear arsenal with its new technology. It’s too bad we’ve made our unnecessary preemptive strike already.