Iran: Bomb and Bombast

Up to this point, the Iranian regime has calculated that there was not much the West would do, even if it could, not least because of Iran’s capacity to make mischief in Iraq. It has played a divided field with considerable success. Defiance will be costlier now. Iran’s leaders would not have tried so hard to prevent Security Council agreement at any level, if they did not grasp that, however timid this first step may be, it has more than symbolic “importance”.

Iran’s boast has been that there is nothing the West can do to hurt it. Western commentary has by and large concurred, but the calculus is shifting.
The Times