The best chance for a peaceful resolution to Iran's nuclear ambition remains a change of regime. A resolution that Obama has no idea how to carry through. Obama the candidate spoke of strong countries and presidents talking to their adversaries (giving legitimacy to holocaust deniers in the process) and Obama the President followed through, wasting an entire year. While Iranians protested a sham election and Obama took credit for creating a robust debate without offering support for the protesters, the centrifuges were spinning. While Obama placated Russia with the cancellation of a missile shield in the vain hopes of support for sanctions against Iran, the centrifuges were spinning. In September while presiding over the Security Council, Obama, with seemingly every TV camera in the world focused on him, and with knowledge of the Qom enrichment facility, did...nothing. With the British and the French urging him to use the opportunity to reveal to the world the hidden nuclear facility, Obama refused, not wanting reality to detract from his Security Council reveries of a nuclear-free world. And instead chose the next day to make the announcement. In Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, the centrifuges kept spinning. And now this week, with the death of opposition religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, protesters are demanding an overthrow of the dictatorship. And still, Obama maintains his vision of engagement. While Tehran boasts of being ten times stronger than they were a year ago, and calls for US disarmament, demonstrators carry signs written in English - graffiti in Tehran asks “Obama — are you with them or with us?" Obama's dreams of engagement and deadlines have run out. Opportunities to increase the odds of a regime change through support of the protesters have passed us by. A year has passed. And still, the centrifuges spin.
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