Thirteen possible reason for Obama's refusal to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons

1. Hell, even Pakistan and North Korea have nukes – why not let another another basket-case toilet of a Third World country develop ‘em? The more the merrier!

2. Iran just wants nukes in order to feel better about itself – I mean, obviously nothing it's done or said so far would suggest they’d be sufficiently batshit crazy to actually use them...

3. Sanctions are actually biting hard. Ahmadinejad’s regime is on the brink of collapse, and will be soon be replaced by a reasonable, peace-loving, European-style social democracy, as has happened so successfully in other Middle Eastern countries since the Arab Spring.

4. Jews have a history of exploiting black people - they used to run stores in black areas, evil stuff like that - so an attack on Israel would represent some kind of rough justice for all those decades of ruthless exploitation. Besides, as I’ve demonstrated time and again during the last three and a half years, I really despise America’s traditional allies, and few allies have been as staunch as Israel – so screw ‘em!

5. My intelligence people are well across the situation, know exactly where Iran has got to, and assure me they’re years off developing a nuclear strike capability. And with our intelligence community's track record, who’d argue with them?

6. It’s always better to talk. I’m basically a liberal lawyer, and I therefore believe that words are, invariably, far more important than actions. The whole point of this leadership business is to spend as much time as possible standing on a podium in front of an adoring audience while wearing a really well-cut dark suit and emitting important-sounding bullshit in a deep Afro-American voice while managing to look stern and compassionate at the same time.

7. Negotiations will work eventually. History tells us that reaching agreement with fanatical fascist dictators who steal elections and torture and murder their opponents may not be easy – but that they stick rigidly to those agreements once made. Fascists never go back on their word – remember, they love their children too.

8. Because I have an Arabic middle name, and because I look a bit Middle Eastern in certain lights, I have a deep insight into the Islamic psyche. Muslims, in return, think I’m a great healer and would do anything to keep me in power rather have to face Mitt Romney, who would look like a WASP even if he was wearing a djellabah in an unlighted, windowless room at 2am on a moonless night in the dead of winter - that’s how un-Arabic that cat is.

9. Nothing matters but winning the election – if I can manage to fool enough voters to squeeze back in, it’ll be another four years before the world fully wakes up to the fact that I’ve been an even more spectacularly useless president that Jimmy Carter. Besides, my life’s goal – the destruction of the United States as a world economic superpower – is only half achieved.

10. As a modern, post-Cold War liberal, I love to indulge in unscrupulous optimism where the safety of my fellow-countrymen or the economy is at stake. I like to say optimistic things, because they make me and my supporters feel better about ourselves, and that’s all that really matters. Besides, being optimistic about the outcome of strategies which even a glancing knowledge of history would suggest always end in total disaster means I don’t have take any difficult decisions, leaving me to get on with the fun stuff, like spending humungous quantities of taxpayers’ money to no effect whatsoever. It's good to be the King.

11. With any luck, the Iranians won’t be ready to attack Israel until after I leave office, by which time there might be a real President in charge of the USA.

12. Ultimately, the Israelis will take care of the problem – after all, they really have no choice. And that’ll allow me to do more sucking up to all my Muslim pals by demanding that Israel’s leaders be tried for war crimes.

13. I am a coward.