Instant Sunshine - Get it here?

Washington Times says
Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal Underestimated, Reports Say
By Ben Barber, The Washington Times
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is far larger than previously suspected and may be five times as large as that of India, according to U.S. military and intelligence reports.
Instead of the previous estimates of 10 to 15 nuclear weapons, the new estimate is that Pakistan has built from 25 to 100 bombs and has the missiles and jet planes to deliver them.
Reuters reports

With Saddam’s Iraq out of the way, Iran now stands as the only Gulf power that can effectively veto regional efforts at peace through either its explicit support of transnational terrorist groups or the employment of its military power — especially as it achieves status as a nuclear power.
There is no other state in the region that combines the same assets and ambition in terms of politics, economics and security.
Saudi Arabia has no effective security profile (nor does Egypt for that matter), and the House of Saud’s political ambitions are more limited in scope, concentrated as they are primarily on keeping the monarchy in power at all costs.
Pakistan possesses a far larger population, but its largely uncontrollable domestic situation consumes whatever ambition the political leadership there has for a larger regional role.
Bush is getting tetchy over the Iranian nuclear ambitions which he fears either cloak bomb-making activity or by their nature create fissionable materials. Little trial balloons keep floating up over the political horizon.
The NY Times says
Diplomats  around the world keep repeating the mantra: There is no military option when it comes to slowing, much less stopping, Iran's presumed ambitions to get the Bomb. The Europeans say so. The Chinese, who need Iran's oil, and the Russians, who make billions supplying Iran's civilian nuclear business, say so emphatically.
Even the hawks in the Bush administration make no threats. When Vice President Dick Cheney was asked Thursday, in a television interview, if the United States might ever resort to force to stop Iran, he handled the question as if it, too, were radioactive.
"No president should ever take the military option off the table," he said, carefully avoiding the kind of language he once used to warn Saddam Hussein. "Let's leave it there."
Mr. Cheney, it seemed, was trying to sow just enough ambiguity to make Iran think twice. Which raises two questions. If diplomacy fails, does America have a military option? And what if it doesn't?
"It's a kind of nonsense statement to say there is no military solution to this," said W. Patrick Lang, the former head of Middle East intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency. "It may not be a desirable solution, but there is a military solution."
Mr. Lang was piercing to the heart of a conundrum the Bush administration recognizes: Iran could become a case study for pre-emptive military action against a gathering threat, under a policy Mr. Bush promulgated in 2002. But even if taking out Iran's facilities delay the day the country goes nuclear, it would alienate allies and probably make firm enemies out of many Iranians who have come to dislike their theocratic government. And Iran simply has too many ways of striking back, in the oil markets, in the Persian Gulf, through Hezbollah.
"Could we do it?" one administration official who was deeply involved in planning the Iraq invasion said recently. "Sure. Could we manage the aftermath? I doubt it."
All seems a heady mix? Let us hope we can get something sorted before this all goes Guy Fawkes-wards. Iran presents it’s actions with a nudge and a wink “Negotiate with us”. I always thought there had to be some two-way trust in any negotiation? We are ignoring Pakistan’s potential on the grounds that they have sufficient other fish to fry.  Pakistan a stable democracy anyone? Pakistan a keeper of nuclear weapons secrecy?
Oh – one more thing. I’ve not factored-in the Israeli attitude. They do not wait for what they see as inevitable aggression. If the hot stuff started to fall in Iran, how long before it went technical and nuclear?
Don’t think I’ll risk my money buying next Christmas’ gifts at the January Sales.