This actually came up three years ago, in Jay Solomon’s piece in The Wall Street Journal, but dismayingly, it’s even more urgent now, not less so.

United Nations inspectors reported the discovery of traces of uranium enriched to higher purity levels than previously found at a fortified nuclear-fuel facility in Iran….

And

Nuclear experts say the enrichment process snowballs, meaning the most extensive technical work is required in the earlier stages—moving to 20% purity from 3.5% levels. Uranium enriched to 27% is considered highly enriched.

If President Barack Obama can’t contain a non-nuclear Iran, and prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, how does he expect to contain a nuclear Iran?

A senior Chinese naval commander has claimed new islands his country is building in the South China Sea will benefit the region, while stressing that such activities “fall well within the scope of China’s sovereignty.”

Yeah. Because the People’s Republic of China is Asia. Especially if its sea grab is allowed to stand, and its bogus claim that the East and South China Sea are PRC domestic lakes is accepted.

Who in Asia would benefit from such a thing? The PRC, getting all the oil and natural gas that lie under the South China Sea, and perhaps the East China Sea. The PRC, getting all the minerals, especially the rare earth metals, that lie on the sea bottom(s). The PRC, getting all the fisheries around the islands the PRC is trying to seize.

Who in Asia does not benefit? All the other nations on the rims of those seas, who are denied access to those same items that lie both in the international waters that are those two seas and in those nations’ respective Exclusive Economic Zones—which the PRC’s grab obliterates. All the other nations on the rims of those seas, who now are front line defense barriers for the PRC—now the First Island Barrier.

There’s this, too, in particular, on the north shore of the South China Sea.

Beijing officials emphasized that there will be no concessions over electoral reform in Hong Kong during a rare meeting with pro-democracy lawmakers Sunday, effectively quashing any possibility of a compromise between the two sides.

Readers will recall, perhaps, this particular…disagreement…notable for both the PRC’s attitude toward agreements it’s made when those agreements prove inconvenient to it, and the PRC’s attitude toward decision-making by anyone other than the Communist Party of China.

These are the benefits the PRC touts.

We are, sort of, using airpower to support the resistance effort against Daesh in Iraq. I say “sort of” here for a different reason than just that it’s desultorily applied, with a low rate of application. My “sort of” stems from one reason why that rate is so low.

…a bureaucracy that does not allow for quick decision-making. One Navy F-18 pilot who has flown missions against ISIS voiced his frustration to Fox News, saying: “There were times I had groups of ISIS fighters in my sights, but couldn’t get clearance to engage.”

And

Sources close to the air war against ISIS told Fox News that strike missions take, on average, just under an hour, from a pilot requesting permission to strike an ISIS target to a weapon leaving the wing.

And here’s the problem confessed, even though the man plainly does not understand what he’s said:

A spokesman for the US Air Force’s Central Command pushed back: “We refute the idea that close air support strikes take ‘an hour on average.’ Depending on the how complex the target environment is, a strike could take place in less than 10 minutes or it could take much longer.”

Ten minutes for a pilot on scene to get permission to strike. And, as the…spokesman…said, it could take much longer.

Ten minutes for a pilot on scene, who already has his rules of engagement, his limitations on collateral damage, his mission briefing, and targets lined up, to get permission to strike those targets.

Does this administration trust these pilots, trust their judgment, or does it not? If this administration does trust, the pilots need to be allowed to strike, not orbit the area asking for permission and waiting—and waiting—to get it.

A lot can happen in those interminable 10 minutes, and a lot more can happen in that hour. The targets can complete their mission, killing innocents or initiating their own attack on their own targets. The targets can leave the zone, or they can disperse. They can spread themselves among innocents, thereby running the risk of collateral damage above allowed limits for our pilots’ mission. The pilots’ fuel could be consumed in the wait before that permission arrives.

Our pilots should take off with permission to engage. We should be applying air power, not playing bureaucratic games.

Beijing on Tuesday defended its building work in the Spratlys, saying the activity was comparable to construction of homes and roads on the mainland. “From the perspective of sovereignty, there is absolutely no difference,” Senior Colonel Yang Yujun, spokesman for China’s Defense Ministry, said at a news briefing.

To an extent, that’s a true statement. However internally logical Yang’s remark is, though, it proceeds from a false premise: there is no PRC sovereignty over the Spratlys, or anywhere else in the South (or East) China Sea. The grab here is naked aggression.