Every now and then the world kicks us all in our lethargic posteriors and we have to wake up. We are in such a time now. The revelations last week that Iran may be some sixty days away from having the enriched uranium capacity to have nuclear weapons capability, led Presidents Obama and Sarkozy and Prime Minister Brown to raise the alarm at the Pittsburgh G-20. Fen Hampson, director of Ottawa’s Norman Patterson School of International Affairs and a man not given to hyperbole, stated on Sunday that the current confrontation can be paralleled with the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sadly, the world had plenty of warning, and did nothing.
