As now appears obvious, the Straussian neocons will attack Iran, sooner before later. Secretary of State Condi Rice indicated as much when she said, "there's not much to talk about" until Iran promises to stop working on a nuclear weapon, never mind that—as Mike Whitney, citing nuclear weapons expert Gordon Prather, points out--Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon. History is a harsh taskmistress and history teaches that when nations stop talking, war is the result. As the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once declared, "war is a continuation of politics by other means," and the neocons are using a blood-soaked political ace to trump the United Nations and the Security Council into providing a familiar nod in the direction of war. As Whitney notes, the neocons believe they "can garner the necessary votes to bring Iran before the Security Council and, perhaps, win support for punitive action," in other words support for total war, or rather total shock and awe, including the use of "global strike" nukes, as Cheney has promised.