Bret Stephens
5/18/2010

The nuclear game Tehran is playing isn’t any more complicated than checkers. But the trouble is they’re whipping us at it. The agreement of Turkey and Brazil to enrich Iran’s uranium is a signal defeat for the Obama administration. Iran’s leaders have learned to habituate the international community to its nuclear advances. What was once considered intolerable Iranian behavior–calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, enriching uranium in defiance of UN resolutions, even becoming a nuclear power–is increasingly seen as unremarkable or understandable or inevitable. The US will now be hard-pressed to explain why a deal they never withdrew from the table–and which they insisted remain unaltered–no longer makes sense.

Stephens writes ‘Global View’ for the Journal.

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