The Iran dilemma

It's clear that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a destabilizing force in the Middle East, a crucial region of the world which faces an uncertain future. (See his latest missive here.) It's also becoming clear that Iran is well on its way to obtaining nukes (see here).

The prospect of such a radically fundamentalist and anti-Western regime obtaining a nuclear warhead is unnerving. However, the US, UK and Israel, who are admittedly the only countries who would possibly have the balls to confront Iran on this, are in a tight spot. One of the major criticisms of the US by Middle Easterners is that they deny Islamic countries the right to possess nukes while retaining the right to do so themselves. So, if the States or Israel were to bomb Iran's installations, this would risk further radicalization of Iran (see here for some recent political discourse involving Iranian mullahs) and significantly decrease any goodwill the West and Israel have (low to begin with) at a very crucial time in the Middle East.

I don't think diplomacy is an option with Ahmadinejad, but taking military action could be a crucial mistake. Should the West just hope that Ahmadinejad is simply bluffing?