Punxsutawney Condi - WSJ.com

Punxsutawney Condi - WSJ.com

Where's actor Bill Murray when you really need him?

On Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency released yet another report expressing alarm over Iran's lack of cooperation and candor on its nuclear programs. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice immediately warned that Iran could face more sanctions, while the European Union's Javier Solana announced another trip to Tehran to see if another dozen or so carrots might induce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop enriching uranium.

For a better flavor of this latest exercise in "Groundhog Day" diplomacy, type the words "Rice" and "Iran" into Google's search engine. Here's what we found among the first 10 results:

- "Rice: Iran must halt nuclear program" – February 9, 2005.

- "Rice on Iran: 'We can't let this continue'" – April 12, 2006.

- "Rice: Iran 'lying' about nuke program" – October 11, 2007.

And so on. These rebukes have often coincided with the IAEA's quarterly reports about its dealings with Iran, which have, without exception, stressed that Tehran has failed to be fully forthcoming about its nuclear programs. Monday's report makes for especially bracing reading: Though it has not yet been publicly released, we have obtained a copy available here.

According to the report, not only have the Iranians continued to enrich uranium (in flat contravention of three allegedly binding Security Council resolutions), they are adding thousands of new centrifuges. Some of these are of a more powerful and efficient second-generation type.

More worrying is what the IAEA delicately calls the "possible military dimensions" of Iran's programs. Given that Iran insists its nuclear drive is for peaceful purposes only, it's interesting to note "the fact that substantial parts of the centrifuge components were manufactured in the workshops of the Defense Industries Organization."

Also interesting is what the report describes as "the development of high voltage detonator firing equipment and exploding bridgewire (EBW) detonators including, inter alia, the simultaneous firing of multiple EBW detonators, an underground testing arrangement . . . and the testing of at least one full scale hemispherical, converging, explosively driven shock system that could be applicable to an implosion-type nuclear device." If there's an innocent explanation for this kind of work, we'd love to hear it.

The report notes in an annex that some of these weaponization experiments took place in 2004. This means the Iranians continued to work on weaponization well after the December U.S. National Intelligence Estimate claimed they had abandoned them. That estimate has already been discredited for suggesting that uranium enrichment and ballistic-missile development fall outside the definition of a "nuclear weapons program." But now it seems this U.S. intelligence "consensus" was wrong even on its own misleadingly narrow terms.

Where do we go from here? If this really were Groundhog Day, we would at least learn something from the previous, persistent failures. Even Mr. Murray's character changed his ways. But Iranian leaders have had six years to develop their nuclear programs since they were exposed in 2002, and the progress they have made has been formidable.

That period has also included years of negotiations with Europe and Russia, in which the Iranians have been offered progressively more generous incentives to suspend their enrichment. It hasn't happened. Nor will it ever as long as the worst the international community can do is impose a set of weak sanctions while offering ever-sweeter incentives for Iran to behave. Even assuming there's a package the West could offer Iran that it would accept, the logic of the current diplomacy gives the mullahs every incentive to continue to play for time.

As for the U.S., Secretary Rice's threat of still-more sanctions will be seen in Tehran for the diplomatic evasion it is. The last set of sanctions took months to pass and were watered down to nothing much. The Administration would do better to withdraw from this international charade and consider means by which the mullahs might be persuaded that their regime's survival is better assured by not having nuclear weapons. A month-long naval blockade of Iran's imports of refined gasoline – which accounts for nearly half of its domestic consumption – could clarify for the Iranians just how unacceptable their nuclear program is to the civilized world.

It might also have a clarifying effect on the U.S. political debate. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have declared that Iran cannot be allowed to become a nuclear power, and we're reasonably confident Mr. McCain means it. As for Mr. Obama, who has spoken of the need for "tough diplomacy," now is the time to find out what he really means by "tough."