THIRTY days. That's how long the UN Security Council gave Iran last week to stop trying to enrich uranium, which could be used for an atomic bomb. And if Iran doesn't politely withdraw its application to join the nuclear club by the time the clock runs out, well, the UN will just have to meet again. Doesn't sound like much of a threat, does it? Especially when you consider the original 30-day deadline was only approved by the Security Council's 15 members after China and Russia refused to sign off if punitive measures were included in the demand. Or that the day after the ultimatum was issued, talks over what to do next fell apart. Sanctions, one of the only options available to the UN, were reportedly rejected out-of-hand by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavarov as impractical. And as disingenuous as Mr Lavarov's statement may have been, he's also right: Iran exports 2.5 million barrels of oil a day and holds the world's second-largest natural gas reserves -- facts that make any sort of sanction or blockade economically unlikely. Furthermore, Iran's senior ministers have openly bragged about their ability to deceive the West about their nuclear program, while Iranian President Ahmadinejad has publicly declared his desire to wipe Israel off the map and is said to be obsessed with the Shi'ite "12th imam", whose coming will herald the end of the world. Can these people really be trusted with the most powerful weapons known to man?

Mr Ahmadinejad's rhetoric places him well outside the boundaries of what Westerners would describe as a "rational actor". But his quest for a nuclear weapon falls within the very rational Middle Eastern penchant for non-conventional warfare that has developed in recent decades. It has been centuries since conventional Muslim or Middle Eastern armies have achieved success on the battlefield; the prophet Mohammed and his succcessors may have been skilled generals able to rapidly spread their new faith over vast swaths of territory, but modern military success has eluded the Islamic world. Seeing the utter disaster -- from their point of view -- of the Six Day War, the bloody stalemate of the Iran-Iraq war and the routing of Saddam Hussein's armies in two Gulf Wars, it is not surprising Middle Eastern leaders are keen to develop non-conventional means of warfare. While often tactically disastrous, low-level non-traditional campaigns such as the use of suicide bombers by Palestinians or insurgency tactics by the terrorists in Iraq have been highly successful in gaining headlines (and even sympathy in some quarters) for some pretty evil people who are more than happy to massacre civilians in exchange for a news grab. Mr Ahmadinejad and his ilk see sophisticated non-traditional weapons as a way to get not just headlines, but strategic results.

The Australian noted recently that Iran's nuclear program was a chance for the UN and its enthusiasts to prove the power of multilateralism to solve an international crisis. So far that hasn't happened, and with each day that ticks by under the UN's phony deadline, Iran is that much closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb. Should that occur, it is anyone's guess what Mr Ahmadinejad will do next -- especially given his equally aggressive missile program, which puts Israel and even some European capitals within range. Military action against Iran has often been dismissed as impractical or impossible, but this defeatist rhetoric immediately gives the game away to the mullahs in Tehran who laugh at, rather than bow to, the moral authority of the UN. Never since the end of World War II have nuclear weapons been so close to the grasp of someone so likely to use them. The Iranians must not be allowed to acquire an atom bomb, and if the UN cannot stop them, someone else will have to.