Baghdad is all atwitter over the P-5+1 talks with Iran beginning today. A sandstorm kept many European and Western diplomats from landing, but the Iranians were out in full force, with Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili leading the way.

Joe Biden lashed out at the Bush administration for its failure to stop Iran’s drive toward nuclear arms. “When we took office, let me remind, there was virtually no international pressure on Iran ... We were the problem. We were diplomatically isolated in the world, in the region, in Europe. ... Today it is starkly, starkly different.” It's different  — but not in the way Biden suggests.

The dispute over Iran’s controversial nuclear program has reached crisis point. Despite increasing foreign sanctions in recent months, Tehran is continuing its nuclear work, refusing to cooperate, and has indeed tripled its monthly production of higher-grade enriched uranium.

David Ignatius has yet another Iran leak from the White House. Here’s the gist: Obama told his close buddy Turkish PM Erdogan to tell his close buddy Ayatollah Khamenei that as long as Iran doesn’t seek nuclear weapons, Obama’s cool with them keeping their nuclear program.

Iran is rapidly approaching the acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability as U.S. and international efforts to prevent or deter it from crossing that threshold have failed.

The amount of 20 percent enriched uranium Iran has and is continuing to produce far exceeds any civilian requirement it needs for the Tehran research reactor (the ostensible reason for which the regime says it needs to produce such material).

There are arguments to be made as to why an Israeli strike now on Iran’s nuclear program would be ill conceived. There are even arguments to be made for a containment regime. I may not agree with those arguments, but they represent a point of view grounded in an honest assessment of reality.

Iran is probably less than a year away from having a nuclear weapon. Do you believe there is any set of sanctions that will stop Iran from getting the bomb?