ANALYSIS / Iran's real nuclear tactic is to keep buying time

Israel's leadership views the European Union foreign policy chief as a latter-day Neville Chamberlain, spearheading a groveling appeasement approach to Iran.

But Iran will not play by the West's rules, even the ones most softened. It believes that time is on its side.

It sees a United States readying for elections and consequently incapable of making a move. It sees a hesitant and divided EU, which does not want to rock the boat and impose harsh sanctions on Iran, and permits its corporations to keep their close ties to the ayatollahs' regime and even sign new contracts, as has been the case recently with Swiss, German, Austrian and Polish energy companies.

Hovering above this all are Russia and China, which are not playing the West's game, and are neutralizing every Security Council attempt to impose further sanctions on Iran.

Iran's game is transparent, and its entire purpose is to fend off and delay any move that smacks of international consensus. It wants to use the time to go on developing its nuclear program - to continue enriching uranium, manufacturing and installing more centrifuges - and approach the moment when it will possess enough fissionable material, equipment, expertise, and technology to build its first nuclear bomb, or come within shouting distance of that goal.

Iran evidently understands that the threat of the military option that the United States and Israel keep bandying about is actually not, at least in the present reality, implementable.