Iran

I haven't really said anything about Iran yet, but their quest for nuclear power is rapidly becoming a problem. Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin put forth a compromise that the Russians have been pushing on Iran. From MSNBC.com:

Putin, speaking after a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, said "one of the main problems is the enrichment of uranium.

"We proposed to our Iranian partners to set up a joint enrichment venture on Russian territory. We have heard various opinions from our Iranian partners on that issue. One of them has come from the Foreign Ministry -- our partners told us they did not exclude the implementation of our proposal."

"In any case, it's necessary to work carefully and avoid any erroneous moves," Putin said.

The way this would work is that the Iranians would enrich nuclear fuel under Russian supervision, use it in their own nuclear facilities, and then the Iranians would return the spent fuel rods to Russia for proper disposal.

I don't think this is a road we want to travel down. It makes my stomach a bit queasy to think that enriched uranium would be traveling the roads or rails of an unstable part of the world. It's much too easy to hi-jack, even though the convoys would certainly enjoy military support. Even if the fuel was taken by plane, I'm just not at ease with this plan.

I think that a much better compromise would be the "Korean Solution" where South Korea has offered to build a power plant near the border with North Korea in order to supply them with their electric needs, although Iran is much larger than North Korea. Offering this solution also gives the Iranians a chance to blink. If they are truly only interested in the generation of electricity, this solves their problem and they can discontinue their program.

If they still persist given this option, I would say the missiles are on the way, which can't be good for our troops on the ground next door in Iraq.