Wait, oh, hold the presses everyone- the UN Security Council is ready to do something about Iran. You know, the Iran that everyone seems to think has nuclear ambitions. The one that the U.S. has been pushing for tighter sanctions on for months. The one that Israel said they may have to break from the U.S. policy-wise just to deal with.

Wait…I spoke too soon. The UN Security Council is ready to LOOK AT PROPOSALS for new sanctions. The U.S. diplomats are working on China.

What if we just walk away from this as an issue and us all that diplomatic effort to take care of ourselves? What if we just let the rest of the world deal with Iran, walk away from the Middle East and say- look, guys, you do what you need to do over there. We’re going to take hundreds of billions and keep it in the military, but make the military an entirely green outfit and hire hundreds of thousands of outside consultants from around the U.S. to help them weatherize every building in the U.S. We’ll fight that war, and you go and blow each other up if that’s really what you want to do. Or just keep talking trash back and forth, since that’s what is going on right now.

Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system.

It’s good that the UN is doing this. They are taking their time. They are making sure everyone agrees- they are doing what the U.S. did not do with Iraq- they are looking for multi-lateral agreement and not taking any kind of unilateral approaches. I commend the U.S. for approaching this with a mindset that we need to get China to agree with us, or maybe we need to alter our own position a little to agree with China. Regardless, we need to be on the same page. With China. Yes, we’re at that point.

"We think the question could come to the table [in March]… But right now we are waiting. We're following the process that's ongoing. We're waiting for the right time to bring the Security Council to deal with it,” said President of the Security Council Emanuel Issoze-Ngondet, Gabon's U.N. Ambassador.

Russian and China want to talk more. Everyone else wants more sanctions. So what will happen? More dialogue about what to do with Iran, most likely. But saying that they will entertain proposals is a big step- at least the UN Security Council is open to the possibility of something needing to happen. That’s good.

But when will something happen? I would guess when Iran makes a misstep or the U.S. makes a big diplomatic bow to China. If we give in on something, they may give in on this. Or if Iran does something stupid, more likely, then they will lose their friends on the UN Security Council and everyone will have no choice but to vote for increased sanctions and that will be the end of that for Iran.

Or we’ll just be talking about it in the summer still. The UN and the Senate should get together…

Photo Credit: Mister V (via Flickr under CCL)