THIS WON'T GO AWAY – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  It isn't very fashionable these days to talk about foreign policy and foreign threats.  We are developing a 1930s mentality, when domestic problems were so great that we just ignored the growing monsters in Europe and Asia.  That was someone else's problem.

For several generations after World War II we seemed to understand the mistakes we and other nations had made.  Now, the passage of time and the distorted teachings in the press and our universities are taking us once more into a period where ignoring foreign threats is becoming too much of a norm.  But these threats don't go away simply because we will it.  We are going to wake up very surprised one morning:

VIENNA: A possible military dimension to Iran's nuclear activities is worrying the United Nations nuclear watchdog, according to a confidential report.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is ''increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military-related organisations'', the report said.
These included ''activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile'', according to the report, which is due to be discussed by the agency's board of governors at a five-day meeting starting on September 12.

The UN Security Council has issued four rounds of sanctions on Iran to force it to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for use in a reactor or a nuclear warhead.

The Islamic republic began its 20 per cent enrichment in February last year, theoretically bringing it closer to the 90 per cent level required to make an atomic bomb.

Tehran insists that its activities are aimed exclusively at developing nuclear power. A diplomat admitted on condition of anonymity that Iran was also making ''lots of efforts'' to get its Fordo enrichment plant, deep inside a mountain near the Shiite shrine city of Qom, operational as soon as possible.

COMMENT:  It's nice to see that the UN has noticed.  There are multiple sanctions in place against Iran, and they haven't done a bit of good.  Yet, our president seems little interested.   He was far more interested in pushing our main Arab ally, Hosni Mubarak, out of office.

Iran's growing nuclear program is having the expected side effects, even before a bomb is tested:  Other nations are cozying up to Iran, and that includes our so-called "ally," Iraq.  We grow weaker, the Iranians grow stronger, and they are fanatics who may just use a nuclear bomb if they get it.

September 3, 2011