Critics of American participation in the joint military effort with Israel against Iran call it a war of choice.  They’re right, but the choice was made in Tehran, not Washington.  Despite months of dialogue and an offer of free nuclear fuel forever, Iran refused to say “the magic words ‘we will never have nuclear weapons.’”  That wasn’t brinksmanship and it wasn’t a bluff.  Thousands of dead leaders, security chiefs and soldiers later, its military assets crumbling and its economy collapsing, Iran still refuses.

If US President Donald Trump was “curious” why Iran’s clerical regime didn’t fold during his prodigious military buildup, he must be gobsmacked that they continue to withhold the magic words in the teeth of the massive execution.  One might have expected the Iranians to agree to the necessary minimum terms and begin cheating as usual.  But that might no longer be an option.  Iran’s “secret” nuclear facilities are not secret for long – penetration of the government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) by Israeli and US intelligence is now too thorough.  Outsourcing enrichment to another country like Pakistan, Russia or North Korea, while logistically feasible, may be politically impossible.  No other country wants to risk Iran’s fate once its helpfulness is inevitably exposed.

Why is the Iranian regime willing to risk its own survival in the dogged pursuit of weapons it may never obtain?  Maybe the lure of future........

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