THIS IS COMING FROM SOMEWHERE – AT 11:24 A.M. ET:  We've been pretty focused on domestic politics, but the Iran clock is ticking.  Each day brings its rogue regime closer to a nuclear weapon, a device that can be sailed into an American harbor in the hold of a ship, dooming an American city to destruction. 

President Barack "deadlines are flexible" Obama set a deadline of December 31, 2009, for Iran to show progress in scaling back its nuclear program, under international supervision.  That deadline has passed, and Mr. Obama shows his usual lack of urgency.

But French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been saying some intriguing things, and he wouldn't be saying them unless he's getting information from somewhere.  Consider:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Israel will not sit idly by while Iran continues work on its nuclear program, Israel Radio reported Saturday quoting London-based newspaper Al-Hayat.

According to the report, Sarkozy, who recently met with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, reportedly told him that France has proof Iran is working to develop an atomic bomb.

That is unconfirmed.  But if the French president said that he has proof, he is the first major leader to say so.  Good reporters will get on this story and try to determine whether the West really has such proof, and how solid it is.  Our own intelligence organizations are revising the notorious 2007 National Intelligence Estimate declaring that Iran had stopped work on a weapons program in 2003.  But intelligence agencies are political bodies.  Reportedly, the new NIE will still hedge.

"Israel might take action to prevent the Iranian regime, which wants to wipe it off the map, from obtaining a nuclear bomb," Sarkozy reportedly said.

I can't believe he'd say that without advance word from Israel. 

France has been tougher on Iran than Obama has been.  Is he now taking the lead in forming Western policy?  With Obama politically weakened, and increasingly ridiculed abroad, I wouldn't be surprised.  The French love to rub our noses in it, and this is one time when we may deserve it.

January 23, 2010