Called third strike

Is it really all that surprising that Iran has had another nuclear fuel processing plant covertly under construction for years? Shouldn’t be. Iran’s nuclear intentions have been pretty thinly veiled. Still, President Barack Obama, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Great Britain’s Gordon Brown sounded dismayed as they accused the Iranians of cheating on international nuclear protocols for at least the third time.

The allies have known about the site for years but waited to publicly challenge Iran until after the Iranians tried to pretend the facility was a “pilot” project in a recent letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The leaders sounded tough but stopped short of threatening Iran with anything more than more economic sanctions if it doesn’t abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. An Iranian official shrugged off more sanctions, telling Fox News that Iran has coped with sanctions for 30 years and will continue to do so.

So, there’s another line in the sand for Iran. Past usually is prologue, which means the Iranians probably won’t hesitate to call the world’s latest bluff.

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