The swords have been shaken, on both sides.

It is becoming evident that Iran is on the cusp of becoming an actual nuclear power. There are currently eight nuclear-armed nations, to include the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan and, of course, Israel. North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006 (though it was a small yield) but is working to further its program.

Words and statements issued previously may be coming home to roost.

And it is a political axiom that: “You answer words with words, and actions with actions.”

Iran has stepped beyond words and has taken action. It may, in fact, not be far from potentially taking the largest action imaginable.

Anyone with a molecule of common sense knows that Iran’s leaders — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in particular (the 6th and current president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, since his election in 2005) — range from the hardest of lines to bordering on psychotic.

From The Times of India:

Ahmadinejad, in an interview with Egypt’s state-owned Al-Akhbar newspaper, lashed out at Israel after its president, Shimon Peres, warned at the weekend that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely.

Israel, Iran’s arch-enemy, was “bound to collapse,” Ahmadinejad said.

“Iran’s capabilities are increasing and it is progressing, and for that reason it has been able to compete in the world. Now Israel and the West, particularly America, fear Iran’s capabilities and role,” he said.

“Therefore they are trying to gather inte3Cp>Ayatollah Mahmoud Alavi, a senior Iranian cleric, Sunday dismissed talk of a military strike by Israel as empty propaganda, taunting the Jewish state for screaming “like a cornered cat” rather than roaring like a lion.

Alavi, a member of the Assembly of Experts, a body that appoints and supervises Iran’s supreme leader, said Israel would not dare attack Iran. “If they make such a mistake they will receive a crushing response from the Islamic Republic,” he told the official IRNA news agency.

Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and launched a similar strike against Syria in 2007 — precedents lending weight to its veiled threats to take similar action against Iran if foreign pressure fails to curb its atomic activities.

But many independent analysts see any such mission as too much for Israel to take on alone. Israel lacks long-range bombers that could inflict lasting damage on Iran’s widely dispersed and fortified facilities.

One point is clear: “sanctions” against Iran haven’t worked and won’t work.

Israel has made it plain that it can’t tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. Possible targets inside Iran are between 930 to 1,400 miles from Israel proper. It is, for example, 1,240 miles from Los Angeles to Dallas.

The sides have lined up.

Will Israel unleash an attack at Iran’s nuclear power sites?

And what will be the response from Russia, and the rest of the Islamic world?

BZ