The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius today persuasively argues that President Obama, in his interview with The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg, issued his most absolute and inflexible threat yet to attack Iran — not if Iran attacks or is about to attack another country, but merely if it appears to be developing a nuclear weapon:
The other point that struck me was Obama’s clarity about establishing a “red line” between an Iranian civilian nuclear program (acceptable) and a weapons program (unacceptable). . . . His message to Israel: If the Iranians cross this red line, the United States will attack. . . . Is Obama bluffing? Who can say, but if you’re an Iranian decision maker (or, perhaps more important, Netanyahu) you have to weigh a bit more heavily the possibility that the president really does mean what he says.
