Here is the latest on the Iranian situation. The IAEA is meeting today and will decide on whether or not to refer the Iranians to the U.N. Security Council. The Council, under the agreement reached the other day by the U.S., Europeans, Russians and Chinese, will wait for the IAEA's full report to be issued next month before deciding on sanctions. This will give the diplomats, especially the Russians, some time to get the Iranians to back down and find some compromise. Meanwhile, the Iranians are making belligerent statements about retaliation if their case is referred to the Security Council. That could include the ejection of inspectors from their country and withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. CBS News is also reporting that the Iranians have been engaged in explosives testing related to the development of nuclear weapons.

Strategypage is reporting that there is a rift in the Iranian government over how to proceed on this issue, with some people apparently unhappy with President Ahmadinejad's belligerent attitude. If this is true we will almost certainly see how powerful he is as they deal with the pushback from a seemingly unified international community on the nuclear issue.

The Guardian has this opinion piece on why the U.S. is acting in a more dovish manner regarding Iran.

It appears that some Europeans are waking up to the fact that militant Islam is an existential threat, and some are growing a spine. Several newspapers have defiantly re-published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that caused Muslims around the world to condemn, sometimes violently, the Danes after a Danish newspaper originally published the cartoons. Michelle Malkin gives a more complete rundown of how this story developed. Unfortunately, as the London Times is reporting, the editor of an Egyptian-owned French newspaper that re-ran the cartoons was fired. In some European editorial rooms, at least, their is a dawning realization that our modern, secular, Western way of life is incompatible with Islam as it is practiced in much of the Muslim world. They seem now to understand that living in a world where fatwahs can be issued by clerics calling for the death of someone for writing a book (Salman Rushdie), where a filmmaker can be butchered in the street for making a film (Van Gogh), and where an entire country can be condemned and boycotted because one of their independent newspapers ran some cartoons, is not acceptable and must be fought with as much vigor as the Fascist New World Order or the Communist New World Order was fought.

In Iraq, the Sunnis are making demands. They want their demands met or else. I think they'll get the "or else".