So it is with nations and leaders. Let’s look at the program this inaugural week.

In foreign policy this administration has been consumed with Iraq: the war, the reconstruction, and our exit, which the Republicans hope will come before they have to face the voters in 2008. Then there’s the suddenly active Middle East, requiring lots of attention with Sharon’s transformation from warrior to statesman and a new Palestinian leader dressed in a suit and tie and sans guerilla head covering. China, poised to gobble up Taiwan, must be deterred from that endeavor. Putin is out of control, and has to be reigned in. It’s time to mend fences with Europe no matter how much we hate Chirac and he hates us. Then there’s the devastation from the tsunami, which wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen.

On top of all of this, Bush faces a formidable domestic agenda. His effort to revamp Social Security is likely to be almost as time consuming as Iraq. Budget deficits and the declining dollar are either harbingers of a financial meltdown or a sustained recovery. Then there is the rest of the Republican domestic agenda. “Strike now” conservative Republicans call, when Democrats have a smaller presence in Washington at any time since FDR became president.

With all of this on the President’s plate and those of his top advisers, it’s easy to ignore one nasty little problem festering in the wings: Iran’s program to build nuclear weapons.

Two starting points are crystal clear. The first is that the Mullahs who control the Iranian government are determined to develop nuclear weapons and to protect their nuclear structure from United States or Israeli attack.

The past is prologue for worse as well as better. The acrimonious debate about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction put President Bush on the ropes. Understandably this administration doesn’t want a repeat of that debacle. So they’re playing down Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.

This is tough to do because, unlike the case of Iraq, here the critical facts have been confirmed two years ago. Actually, the Shah started Iran’s nuclear program to build power plants. They’ve come a long way since then. At this point, it is undisputed that Iran has two secret facilities to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. At Natanz it has a gas centrifuge to enrich uranium. At Arak it has a heavy water production facility to extract plutonium.

The Bush administration has delegated the issue to the Europeans. In the short run undoubtedly a clever poly. We avoided dealing with a complex problem while improving relations with Germany and France.

What the record of the last several months demonstrates, however, is that our European friends have been ineffectual in dealing with the problem. The Iranians have been playing a great game of cat and mouse. They give a little to avoid sanctions. Then they take it back. For people who purport to believe in God above all else, the Iranian rulers are deft at making promises and breaking them.

The second starting point is that Iran is the worst possible nation to possess nuclear weapons. Their government has shown again and again its support for terrorism. Blind with hatred for the United States and Israel (the large Satan and the small one) rational behavior cannot be expected from Tehran. Desperate to stay in power, the Mullahs would justify using the weapons on their own people if that were necessary to quell dissent. Saudi Arabia might be another target.

Early in the Bush administration, two or three years ago, battles raged between hawks and doves about whether to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat by pinpoint bombing. The doves won out. We put on blinders and hoped the problem would go away. Not a wise tactic in the long run.

Nuclear explosions are so powerful that they’ll blow away the blinders. And historians will wonder how we let it happen. I’ll be thinking about that on Inaugural Day as the parade passes me by.