Iran Nuke Update

The New York Times is reporting that diplomacy has failed to sway Iran and North Korea from their nuclear ambitions and appears to be laying the blame, like usual, on the Bush administration.

"The conventional wisdom now is that [North Korea has] completely reprocessed all of it,” said Gary Samore, who headed nonproliferation efforts at the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton and has conducted a detailed assessment of North Korea for the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “They had a huge window of opportunity when we were invading Iraq, and they appear to have made maximum use of it.”

Of course, we can ignore the debacle known as the Agreed Framework negotiated by Jimmy Carter under Bill Clinton's watch. But as usual, we have another president to the rescue:

Several of Mr. Bush’s aides have said they expect little concrete progress before the presidential election. The Iranians appear to be betting that Mr. Kerry, if elected, would talk directly to their leaders. Mr. Kerry has also said he would engage in bilateral discussions with North Korea; Mr. Bush has insisted on multilateral talks.

Of course, he'll probably just redo the Agreed Framework in light of what he wants to do in Iran:

John Kerry's proposal would call their bluff by organizing a group of states to offer Iran the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they cannot divert it to build a weapon. If Iran does not accept this offer, their true motivations will be clear.

Democrats cannot be trusted to fix this situation.