The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression – thus again routinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law.

As tensions escalate, eerie echoes of the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the air. Feverish U.S. primary campaign rhetoric adds to the drumbeat.

Meanwhile, as tensions mount, the US applies sanctions which won't affect the leadership but will affect the ordinary citizen and may even amount to war crimes. 

While all this unfolds, one of Israel's leading stragegists has concluded tha nuclear arms are negative for the state of Israel.  He calls for a zone in the Middle East that excludes all WMD.

Meanwhile, the West's sanctions on Iran are having their usual effect, causing shortages of basic food supplies – not for the ruling clerics but for the population. Small wonder that the sanctions are condemned by Iran's courageous opposition.

The sanctions against Iran may have the same effect as their predecessors against Iraq, which were condemned as "genocidal" by the respected U.N. diplomats who administered them before finally resigning in protest.

The Iraq sanctions devastated the population and strengthened Saddam Hussein, probably saving him from the fate of a rogues' gallery of other tyrants supported by the U.S.-U.K. – tyrants who prospered virtually to the day when various internal revolts overthrew them.

There is little credible discussion of just what constitutes the Iranian threat, though we do have an authoritative answer, provided by U.S. military and intelligence. Their presentations to Congress make it clear that Iran doesn't pose a military threat.