Iranian nuke and the war of words

While the hardworking IAEA continues mapping out the Iranian drive to get the nuke, Iranians continue smiling merrily, like in this picture:

They have learned by now that IAEA is just a paper tiger and that their sponsors in Beijing and Moscow will never allow a really harsh punitive measure to be passed through the UNSC.

Meanwhile, the rhetoric from Jerusalem escalates to the heights hitherto unknown.

If Iran does not halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons, it will face a choice between "keeping the bomb or surviving," Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe (Bogey) Ya'alon said on Thursday, according to Army Radio.

It certainly looks like our Strategic Threats Affairs are in good hands and that the time when a certain Mr Lieberman held this portfolio wasn't a total waste of hot air. Still, it continues to show that the wisdom of "When you have to shoot...Shoot! Don't talk." didn't seep through the well insulated skulls of our politicos. Even those carrying the lofty general's insignia from their past.

The current state of affairs is very good for newspapermen and scoop seekers (or, rather, scoop inventors). Take, for example, the typical piece of self-parodying crapola from one Eli Lake at Daily Beast.

For much of the last decade, as Iran methodically built its nuclear program, Israel has been assembling a multibillion-dollar array of high-tech weapons that would allow it to jam, blind, and deafen Tehran's defenses in the case of a pre-emptive aerial strike.

No shit, Sherlock! And before the publication of this brilliant achievement of investigative journalism, the rest of the uneducated world surely expected Israeli Air Force to bring in five or six Pipers equipped with a compass and a map of the region borrowed from the latest issue of National Geographic... right. Or take this:

The likely delivery method for the electronic elements of this attack would be an unmanned aerial vehicle the size of a jumbo jet.

Imagine that: swarms of jumbo jet sized electronic spies closing upon cowering Tehran... I have only two questions: which jumbo jet does the scribe mean: the Boeing's one or that by them other people? And does it have a first class cabin or is it all tourist? Oh well...

And, of course, there is the enjoyable business of watching Juan Cole tying himself into all kinds of impossible knots (which is the more difficult task when one's head is stuck up one's backside), trying to retreat gracefully from his initial denial stand.

But let's be positive for a change: the unconventional storm of rhetoric is certainly having its impact on Iranian generals. Their air defense exercises are surely exhausting their stocks of weaponry as well as their frayed nervous systems. So it's all to the good.

Or is it?