Is US ready to punish Iran further
Iran has been haunting the US and the West for the last 15 years, despite massive UN sanctions being in place. Iran is still importing most of the petrol and diesel requirements as it does not have the refining capacity internally.
The country continues to be the economically weakest country in the middle east, despite being the second largest natural gas reserve holder of the world.
US has been haunted by this fundamentalist country through it’s successful efforts to foment trouble and disturbance in Iran, Palestine and Afghanistan. Now Iran has declared that it is a nuclear power and is going ahead with massive Uranium enrichment program.
The US has already burnt it’s fingers by reading the Iraq and Afghanistan situation wrongly, and it cannot afford to take one more dangerous military offensive decision, against Iran, say experts.
But any further delay in acting sternly against Iran, would anyway increase the chances of further long term threats to US and West, which also the US cannot afford.
So the choice for US today is between the devil and the deep sea. Only time will tell as to whether US will bite the bullet, or it would be taking a reactive measure against the adamant Iranian regime.
The current weak economic scenario in US and the West is an added reason for the US to go slow against any military decision.