Cheney on Iran

The Politico's Ben Smith reports that former Vice President Cheney surfaced in New York to warn about a conspiracy to impede American efforts to disarm Iran:

The former Vice President characterized the Iranian goal in negotiations on ending that country's nuclear program as mere stalling for time, and the Europeans as trying to "restrain the U.S." from military action.

"Everybody's in a giant conspiracy to achieve a different objective than the one we want to achieve," Cheney said.

The negotiations are "bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible" in threatening military action against Iran, he said.

"Most of the other nations out there are willing to live with a nuclear-armed Iran" he said, citing France, Germany and the United Kingdom in particular.

I think the term "conspiracy" is a tad strong here, but I suspect the former VP is correct in assuming that at the end of the day, most of America's allies would rather see Iran go nuclear if the only alternative left is to wage war against Iran. I also suspect that the same holds true for the current administration and perhaps a majority of the American people. At the end of the day, containing a nuclear Iran will likely be viewed as the lesser of two evils when stacked up with the prospect of launching a second war in the Persian Gulf.

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