what is your plan B on Iran?

Time for plan B, Bam

Last Updated: 3:56 AM, September 26, 2009

Posted: 12:23 AM, September 26, 2009

Surprise, surprise, surprise, as Gomer Pyle used to say: Iran has been try ing to hide a second uranium-enrich ment plant.

But then, really: Just how much of a "surprise" should that have been?

More important, now that everyone knows, what exactly does President Obama plan to do to keep Iran from actually getting a bomb?

Asked yesterday, Obama said merely that "what has changed is that the international community has spoken," refering to angry reaction from world leaders.

True, he tried to suggest that all "options" -- presumably, including a military response -- were on the table.

But is Obama still seriously hoping that a world consensus will somehow truly halt Iran's race to nuclear statehood?

If so, start worrying.

Because it's now no longer possible to deny that Tehran is rapidly pursuing nukes -- faster than many had thought.

Of course, anyone with eyes has had to have assumed that Iran wants nuclear weapons. But Obama had enough info to know: US officials said they'd been tracking the facility "for years."

Yet that only makes Obama's Iran policy for the past nine months even more inexplicable.

From the start, the president has been adamant about coddling Iran's head thug, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and pursuing diplomatic talks.

Even after the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the second site yesterday, Obama pledged his commitment to "meaningful engagement" and "dialogue." (Heads up: A mushroom cloud is a powerful bargaining chip.)

When Ahmadinejad stole re-election and violently crushed dissidents, Obama sat on his hands.

When the prez decided to scrap a US missile shield in Eastern Europe, aimed at defeating possible nuke-tipped Iranian missiles, he cited intelligence showing the Iranian nuclear threat wasn't as grave as thought.

(How, exactly, does that square with news of Iran's secret enrichment site?)

And this week, after the UN Security Council adopted an anti-nuclear-proliferation "resolution" that left out any mention of Iran, it took French President Nicolas Sarkozy to express shock: "How," he asked "could we justify meeting without tackling" Iran's nukes?

Now, in light of yesterday's revelation, Obama's nine-month course seems almost suicidal. Surely this second site means Iran is closer to having a bomb than most knew.

That it's on a military base makes it harder for Iran to claim it's for peaceful purposes -- and perhaps tougher to take out by force, if need be.

And the secrecy around it proves that Iran won't ever "talk" honestly with the "international community."

Let's face it: Negotiating isn't likely to work. Obama needs a Plan B. Pronto.