For years, the media and the U.S. government have repeated a familiar refrain: that the regime of now-ailing Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, however annoying, poses no serious threat to the national security of the United States. Compelling evidence, however, suggests otherwise. Under Chavez, Venezuela has systematically opposed U.S. values and initiatives throughout the Western Hemisphere and the world in general. It has tried to influence political events in other Latin American countries, sometimes successfully. It has supported guerrilla movements and terrorist organizations in other countries (most notably Colombia). And it has facilitated the activities of drug traffickers active in the region, even as it has destabilized the regional status quo through massive military purchases.

The most dangerous threat to the U.S. from Venezuela, however, results from its facilitation and encouragement of the penetration of the Western Hemisphere by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since 2005, with Venezuela’s assistance, Iran has created an extensive regional network of economic, diplomatic, industrial and commercial activities, with significant effect. The sum total of Iran’s declared investments in the region now stands at some $20 billion, at a time when the Iranian economy itself is in exceedingly poor condition. The depths of Iran’s involvement in the Western Hemisphere are all the more surprising—and significant—given that there is no historical or cultural affinity whatsoever between Iran and the countries on this side of the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the Iranian regime in recent years has exhibited an unprecedented level of interest and involvement in the region, facilitated by its burgeoning strategic partnership with Caracas.

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Is China finally coming around on Iran? For years, Beijing's steady backing has helped the Iranian regime frustrate international efforts to isolate and penalize it for its nuclear ambitions. This month, however, there are heartening signs that China is reassessing its longstanding strategic partnership with the Islamic Republic.

In the short term, Washington works to protect Israel and other U.S. allies, combat terrorism, rebuff Iran's hegemonic ambitions, and support regional stability, all of which ensures the continued flow of oil to power Western economies.

The past two weeks have seen a dramatic escalation in Iran’s war of words with the West.

Last Wednesday, Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, that new economic pressure currently being contemplated by the West would come at a steep cost. According to Rahimi, “not a drop of oil” will pass through the Strait of Hormuz — a key strategic waterway that serves as a conduit for as much as a third of the world’s oil — if additional sanctions are levied against the Islamic Republic for its nuclear program. Iran’s top naval commander, Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, has been even more explicit, warning publicly that his country stands ready to block the strait if necessary.

Ever since the late October release of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report on Iran, the White House has been working overtime to convince the world that it is, in fact, committed to preventing the Islamic Republic from going nuclear. Last month, responding to criticism of his Iran policy from Republican challengers, President Obama argued that the sanctions levied by his Administration to date have had “enormous bite.”

The reality, however, is considerably more modest. While it has publicly pledged its commitment to a serious economic offensive aimed at derailing Iran’s nuclear drive, in practice the White House has done far less than necessary to achieve that objective.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear program has refocused world attention on the Iranian regime’s relentless pursuit of the bomb and on the global failure thus far to derail it. But a multilateral solution to the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions appears to be as elusive as ever, due in no small measure to the stances of its enablers — Russia among them. In recent days, Moscow has publicly rejected the new IAEA findings and argued for renewed diplomacy in response to Iran’s nuclear transgressions.

TODAY, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report on Iran’s nuclear program. It provides the most convincing evidence to date that Iran is close to producing a nuclear weapon.

But as Iran nears the nuclear threshold, the best way to stop it may be by punishing the Chinese companies that supply Tehran and enable its nuclear progress.

In recent years, the United States has imposed a punishing sanctions regime on Iran’s banking sector. To further increase Tehran’s level of financial pain, a great number of congressional and advocacy groups have repeatedly called on the White House to blacklist the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). Doing so, the thinking goes, would seriously hamper the Islamic republic’s ability to abuse international markets in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Yet unbeknownst to most lawmakers and Washington policymakers, the U.S. Treasury actually hasblacklisted the CBI, and not once, but twice in recent years. The real question is why the U.S. government has not enforced its own sanctions regime.

It is something of a truism that in Washington, bad ideas never truly go away. Instead, they keep cropping up at the most inopportune moments. So it is with American policy toward Iran. Stymied in recent months by the resilience of Iran's increasingly mature nuclear effort and complicated by the unfolding turmoil of the “Arab Spring,” policymakers inside the Beltway are once again flirting with the idea that some sort of diplomatic rapprochement with the Islamic Republic is in fact possible.