Recently, it has become evident that the next major foreign policy challenge facing the United States is Iran’s quest to go nuclear. This situation has many parallels to the lead up to war with Iraq, but unlike that situation, I’m not convinced that war is an option here. The first objective for the U.S. in dealing with Iran must be to organize a consistent message – make it clear to the Iranians what will and will not be tolerated and what the consequences of their actions will be.

Iran is slowly replacing Saddam’s Iraq as the next greatest threat to international peace in our time. In the last few weeks, they’ve been bragging to the world about their budding nuclear weapons program. When questioned, Iran insists it enriches uranium only for peaceful purposes but continues to defend its right to possess a nuclear weapon. Taking a page out of Saddam’s playbook, they’ve been on the offensive, offering harsh rhetoric promising an “unstable Middle East” should the United Nations or the United States attempt to physically stop an Iranian nuclear program. This is unacceptable coming from the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism.

Current U.S. restrictions on Iran – as a result of its non-compliance – include strong opposition to its membership application in the World Trade Organization, as well as a ban on sales of civilian aircraft parts. Yet, last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered Iran a deal: we ease up on those restrictions and they stop enriching uranium. Simultaneously, Vice President Cheney switched gears and said if Iran does not comply with U.S. demands, then we must take stronger action against them. A few days prior, President Bush announced that attacking Iran would be “simply ridiculous.” So which is it?

The Bush Administration must get its story straight with regards to publicizing a policy that will prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Israel has its story straight. They have already laid out plans for tactical air strikes on Iranian nuclear development facilities.

The United Nations and the United States must take a hard line against the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon and must live up to their early promises to draft, pass and enforce Security Council resolutions. If and when this does not happen, the United States and Israel must physically eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The parallels between this situation and the lead up to the war in Iraq are almost comical. We have never actually seen these weapons. Of course there have been satellite images taken, and Iran promises nukes are being built somewhere underground. But still, you liberals might ask, do we really know they are there?

I’m still of the opinion that if a country tells you they have WMDs, and you’ve seen them building WMDs, then they have WMDs.

Where the Iraq story and Iran story begin to separate is at the United Nations. The U.N. response to Iran has been encouraging – Security Council leaders have promised to hold Iran accountable to international accords barring them from nuclear production.

However, realists know this U.N. accountability song and dance – they’ve lost legitimacy after the Resolutions 1441 and 687 debacles with Iraq.

Should the U.N. not make good on their promises to stop Iranian nuclear production, either through bribery or persuasion, the United States and Israel must be prepared to do so.

Because the United States must certainly not budge from the concept of a nuclear-free Iran, I’m led to believe our only option is to physically stop them from producing nuclear weapons should, and when, international diplomacy fails. Does this mean we must invade and change regimes? No. Ground troops are unnecessary; full scale invasions are impractical.

The goal of war is to get your enemy to do your will. An allied precision bombing campaign that shuts down a fledgling nuclear program will be as close to war as we need to come.

But first, the United States needs to get the story straight.