In dealing with Iran, the whole "international community" is going "You first!"  Who gets to fight the cobra first?  There are no eager volunteers.

For three years Obama has been trying sweet reason on the cobra of Tehran, which is not famously susceptible to it.  Obama has been covering his own rear end with millions of goofy American liberals who live in permanent denial.  Covert actions like Stuxnet have had some effect, but not enough.  Tehran's Armageddon machine is therefore steaming straight to the biggest iceberg in history, and the only hope is that the suicidal ideology they have been preaching for thirty years is a phony front.  That is a faint hope indeed, and not one on which to base the survival of a nation.

Various sources now report that Israel's PM Netanyahu is going to ask Obama to swear -- by whatever is holy to him (which isn't much) -- that the United States will take military action if trade sanctions fail.

Trouble is, no sane person in the world can believe Obama's promises.  During the Cold War, the United States guaranteed world peace because we made credible promises.  The Russians always had much bigger tank divisions.  Stalin did not drive his thousands of tanks to the Atlantic Ocean because our promises of nuclear retaliation were believable. 

Our credibility is now largely gone.  If China invades Taiwan tomorrow, will the United States stick with its longstanding commitment to Taiwan's defense?  Nobody knows.

So Bibi can't be serious about getting Obama to swear to attack the mad theocracy if sanctions fail.  This has to be a public gambit.  It tells Israeli voters that Bibi is going the extra mile for a peaceful resolution.  It poses a public question to Obama, who has been sidestepping serious decisions on Iran for three years.  And if Obama says "no" to Bibi in public, he will lose some brownie points with American Jews -- those very, very few who still remember history.

Whatever the outcome of the talks, we know ahead of time what Obama will do when bombs go off in the Middle East.  He will do whatever serves his own interests, period.  That's the only thing he's ever done, and there's no reason to think he will change now.

Which makes the whole Bibi-Barry meeting largely irrelevant.  Whatever happens will be determined by facts on the ground.  Politicians have become helpless spectators.  Thirty years have been wasted in cowardice and hesitation.

Obama has missed the bus.

The Middle East is now out of control.  The coming crisis could have been averted by smart statesmanship.  The rise of Iran's theocracy is an enormous human failure.  It can be pinned largely on the international left, which wants to see nuclear regimes rise to challenge the United States, and on the Democratic Party.  Obama is only the most radical leftist so far.

When Middle East goes critical, remember who had a chance to prevent it.  The leftist propaganda organs will spin and spin like a top, but the facts are facts.  When the Titanic hits that iceberg, denial and spinning will not help Obama and the Democrats.