What Constitutes a Threat?

David Blair in the Daily Telegraph says that Iran represents the largest threat to the West:

Today, Iran's nuclear programme is the number one preoccupation of those charged with protecting our safety, outranking Afghanistan, Pakistan and the general field of counter-terrorism.

This is an interesting juxtaposition. In Pakistan at least, we know that there is an organization dedicated to sending terrorists into America to kill innocent civilians. They have done so in the past and, by all accounts, are trying their best to do so in the future. In Iran, we have a country that poses a geopolitical challenge to certain professed American interests - principally a secure flow of oil from the Gulf and the defense of Israel - but poses no threat as of yet to American civilians inside America and may never.

Which is the more urgent priority? Which has the higher claim on the attention of our national security bureaucracy?

(AP Photos)