John Ritch, former US ambassador to the IAEA recently said, "So long as Iran remains within the non-proliferation treaty and the inspectors remain on the ground there, there's nothing the US can do within the Security Council.  If there is a suspect site, the IAEA inspectors can go there."

In other words, if the United States wants to make allegations that Iran is out of compliance with the Treaty, they can simply say "what and where." It seems to me that the situation is not that much different from the one that existed just prior to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.  I was a total believer, then, in the administration's claims of huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.  I could not understand why the US didn't just put silence the naysayers and doubters simply by sending the U.N. weapons inspectors to one location they claimed to know of ... one ... the rest would have been conceded.

I think we know now why they did not.

And, while the Bush Administration crows about how Russian President Vladimir Putin "agrees with Bush" that Iran should not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, Putin was firm in asserting the biggest point on which the two men disagree ... Putin does not believe Iran has a program to develop such a weapon.

In other words, Russia, and the European Union have both stressed to the US that, while they support our efforts to destroy world terrorist groups, they will not condone another unilateral invasion by the United States of a country like Iraq, against which no evidence can be produced to bolster claims of an intent to produce or build stores of banned weapons.

Actually, that's the biggest problem I think this Presidency faces ... too little of what it has claimed has turned out to be true.  Had the fabulous claims made to justify the invasion of Iraq turned out to be true, had the projections of a quick and easy defeat turned out to be true, would there be any problem justifying a like invasion of the neighboring countries to the west and east?

President Bush is dealing with a credibility crisis ... and that extends to his domestic policy (the President's sweeping social security reform plans don't have a ghost of a chance).

To most of the world, Iraq is within the mandates of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The US stands virtually alone ... and that's the direct result of foreign policy decisions made by our current presidential administration.

The violation Iran is accused of involves breaking the voluntary "additional protocol" to the protocols of the NPT, which Iran signed in December 2003, not a statutory provision of the NPT:

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2003/iranap20031218.html

I can't help but feel that things would be a LOT different had the US claims (of huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons by Iraq) had proven true.   We're reaping the whirlwind of those unproven claims. Even if they refuse inspections of a facility, it is NOT absolute proof they are hiding something -- we learned that in Iraq

Whether you believe these were deliberate lies, or just more of a series of serious misjudgments and outright mistakes, there are a few things we know for sure.

We know that we can't support our leaders unless they:

• Speak nothing but the truth and make no claims that can't be proven.
  
• Present a clear plan for the invasion, the ensuing occupation and an strategy for getting out.
  
• Secure the cooperation and support of the Iranian or Syrian people for their own "liberation".
  
• Create a real "coalition" of nations before going in.
  

We may yet end Iraq on a positive note but after two years, some $160billion spent, 1521 American soldiers' lives lost, it could be argued that we've accomplished little more than turning a stable secular nation in a training and recruitment center for terrorists.  Instability in that region of the world benefits the enemy; not us.

People, we were sold an imperial dream, one that is not in keeping with the principles of traditional conservatism; the tenets of the Christian faith, or the values expressed so eloquently in our foundling nation's Declaration of Independence and codified as the highest law of our land in the Constitution of the United States.  

We're not the ones paying the price for the mistakes of our leaders; our brave young soldiers are.  And they deserve our support ... they earned it.  Let's not send them down a bloody road to Damascus or Tehran.