The Persian Three Thousand

On Wednesday, Iranian madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his country has 3,000 working centrifuges. Hours later, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said a military operation was a viable option for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.

"We cannot take any option off the table and we need to study operational aspects," Barak said, adding that he could not go into detail. "This is not just for the coming months but also for the coming two years," he said.

US experts say 3,000 centrifuges are enough to produce a nuclear weapon, perhaps as soon as within a year.

Somebody needs to stop Iran, even French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently said that an Iran with nuclear weapons is "unacceptable." If Washington remains reluctant to step up to the plate, how far will Israel let the scales tip before taking action?