Red lines on Iran

It started with "You killed our saviour" and "Christ killers" and then became "Jews are pushy" and "Jews are loud" and then "Jews are our misfortune" and "Jews are backstabbers" and then "Jews are our enemy" and "Jews are responsible for all our problems," and finally "Kill the Jew!" That's how it went in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and we know the consequences.  Now in Iran the same process is taking place, "Jews are sons of monkeys and pigs" (it says that in the Koran, a revelation from Allah to Mohammed) and "Jews control the USA," and "the Holocaust is a fabrication," and finally "we will wipe Israel off the map."  Shall we sit and wait for that to happen?

Now Canada under PM Harper has had enough and has cut off diplomatic relations with Iran.  There are other leaders, such as Pres. Obama who believe that reasoning with megalomaniacal extremists can bring them to their senses.  But, we should know by now that that will never work.  Now Pres. Ahmedinejad has announced that Canada is controlled by the Jews and the Zionists, what else?  Certainly the sanctions are working, they are having an effect on the Iranian economy and are costing Iran ca. b$10 per month in lost oil and other revenues.  But, has it changed their tune, will it influence their determination to achieve Shia/Iranian hegemony over the Middle East and then the world, of course not!  As one member of the UN publicly states that it will destroy another member state of the UN, against all the principles that the UN is supposed to stand for, do the nations of the world do anything?  There is no appeasing lunatics, there is no way of dealing rationally with fundamentalist extremists.  Unfortunately Israel is caught between a rock and a hard place.  Noone else will bite the bullet, noone else is prepared to take the bull by the horns, noone else is prepared to tackle Iran head on, except Israel.

So far Pres. Obama has vacillated.  When first elected he tried to make overtures to the Iranian leadership, after all they must (in western terms) be rational.  But, they are not, and it didn't work.  He made his famous speech form Cairo, that will go down in history as one of the most stupid and disastrous speeches ever made by an American President, a kind of extended mea culpa.  But, that didn't work either.  Then he agreed with Israel that Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.  But, since then he has relied on sanctions and international diplomatic pressure.  PM Netanyahu has challenged Obama, what are his red lines on Iran, does he have any?  It's all well and good spending most of the time trying to restrain Israel, talking about different time-lines and interpretations of Iranian intentions.  But, whether Netanyahu is serious or only trying to arouse international and US action against Iran by his threats, the question arises, do the Iranians take any threats from the US seriously, can the trillion dollar American military make any difference if its credibility is in question, does Obama have any red lines on Iran?