With the fall of Ba'athi Iraq, there are only two targets left on the
famous, or infamous, "axis of evil." And the tactfulness of the
original locution aside, Iran is one of them. The Iranian regime
sponsors terrorists who murder Americans and is building a very
sophisticated, independent nuclear-technology infrastructure.
The Bush Administration has vowed to take pre-emptive action against
regimes that pose such threats, so Iran's mullahs must be wondering
if they are next in line for the application of U.S. force. After
all, they more resemble Ba'athi Iraq's leadership--an elite seeking
but still lacking an operational nuclear weapons capability--than
they do the leadership of their missile trading partner in North
Korea, which appears to have put itself beyond relatively risk-free
U.S. military action. The mullahs know that the United States already
has sufficient military power in the region to reduce most of Iran's
budding nuclear infrastructure to rubble within 48 hours. They know,
too, that all international efforts, including U.S. economic
sanctions, to dissuade Iran from the nuclear course short of using
force have failed. They have well earned the right to be worried.
