QUOTE OF THE DAY - SO FAR - AT 8:44 A.M. ET:  Also on Iran, from David Ignatius in today's Washington Post:

One Iranian political figure has told a Western intermediary that the Obama administration may have unwittingly encouraged the regime's power grab by sending two letters to Khamenei before the June election. The first, delivered through Iran's mission to the United Nations, was a general invitation to dialogue. Khamenei is said to have taken a month to answer, and then only in vague terms. A second Obama administration letter reiterated U.S. interest in engagement. According to the Iranian political figure, this may have emboldened Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to think they had a free hand on June 12.

And this:

Tehran's analysis, according to this second Iranian, is that America has three options for Iran: engage, contain or attack. "The perception in Tehran is that America hasn't made up its mind what it wants," this prominent politician confided. That's probably the right assessment. And on this issue, as with so many others, the administration is nearing decision time.

COMMENT:  Decision time for an administration that took months to define what it wanted in a health-insurance plan, a subject that's been studied for years. 

A recent poll showed that 80% of Europeans are opposed to military action against Iran, even if diplomacy fails, which means that Iran has every reason to make diplomacy fail.  While Americans would undoubtedly be more supportive of a military strike, that support would not extend to the San Francisco Democrats, as Jeane Kirkpatrick called them, who are dominant in the party.  And the president's aversion to real confrontation is well known.  He is running the biggest appeasement operation since Jimmy Carter chewed on peanuts in the Oval Office.

September 10, 2009