US Shelves Iran Diplomatic Outpost

Last weekend the Bush administration quietly abandoned plans to send diplomats to Iran.

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has shelved plans to set up a diplomatic outpost in Iran, in part over fears it could affect the U.S. presidential race or be interpreted as political meddling, The Associated Press has learned.

The proposal to send U.S. diplomats to Tehran for the first time in three decades attracted great attention when it was first floated seriously over the summer but has now been placed on indefinite hold as November’s election nears and Iran continues to defy demands to halt suspect nuclear activities, officials told the AP.

(Hat tip:Charlie)

David Kay Advises Waiting Until Nuclear Attack

Former head of the Iraq Survey Group David Kay says Iran is 2 to 5 years from nuclear weapons.

But he also says we should not even think about a military strike until after one of our cities is nuked.

“My personal guess is they are two to five years away from having a sufficient amount of fissile material and weapon design work to put them in a place where you believe they have the capability of putting a warhead on the end of a missile,” Kay said.

Kay said there is “virtually no possibility” Iran will give up its uranium enrichment program, which can be used to fuel civilian reactors for domestic energy use as well as make fissile material for warheads.

He dismissed the notion that a U.S. or Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would be effective or useful. He said it would only delay the development of a weapon by one to two years at the most, and would unite Iran’s people more firmly behind its leaders.

Kay would only advocate a military attack “if I found the Iranians had transferred a nuclear weapon to a third party, a terrorist organization or another state,” or if it used a nuclear weapon in an attack.

A reminder: it’s been four months since Mohamed ElBaradei said on Al-Arabiya television that Iran could have a nuclear weapon within 6 months.

(Hat tip:Chuckles our #1 Contributor)