TEL AVIV -- It's official. Iran has delivered its response to Washington's open-minded, well-intentioned efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis. Tehran's five-page letter amounts to a joke, a mockery of the West, a nose-thumbing at Barack Obama, the United States and the international community.

This means that in the months to come, Obama will likely face the most difficult and dangerous decision of his presidency.

Obama's famous outstretched hand, his legendary oratorical skills, his faith in humanity proved insufficient to persuade the now-embattled and even more radicalized rulers of the Islamic Republic to get serious about nuclear negotiations. Unless something suddenly changes in the next few days -- and there is no reason to expect that to happen -- the only conclusion we can reach is that diplomacy failed.

Obama set late September, the next meeting of the G-20, as a deadline for Iran to show tangible progress toward a negotiated solution. The post-election repression in Iran, the bizarrely unserious letter and the impending arrival of the deadline mean a new phase is about to start.

Tehran's letter, delivered at the United Nations, does not even address the issue sparking the crisis: Iran's nuclear enrichment, its repeated defiance of international demands regarding its nuclear program and its failure to provide enough information to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Instead, the letter, rambles on about the Islamic Republic's willingness to discuss ``a new era characterized by a cultural approach.'' It brings up spirituality, wellness, the prosperity of nations and even space technology. And, without a hint of irony, with scores still imprisoned in Iran for protesting the regime's stolen election, the letter proposes to enter a dialogue about ``the right of people to have free elections.''

Iran wants to discuss South America and Africa. It wants to talk about illegal drugs, immigration and the environment. It will talk about anything -- except its nuclear program.

We didn't need the letter to know that. Even as breathless headlines around the world proclaimed that Iran was offering to negotiate with the West, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had already declared -- again -- that Iran's nuclear program remains nonnegotiable.

Iran, of course, says the program aims only to produce nuclear energy. And yet, the IAEA, which has treated Tehran with kid gloves, refraining from publicizing the most damning evidence, has openly reported that Iran refuses to provide proof that the enriched uranium is not diverted for military uses. Iran is masterful at playing the game of the Middle Eastern bazaar, talking and talking, entertaining, drinking tea, changing the subject.

In the meantime, U.S. officials say evidence that Iran's efforts aim not at nuclear power but weapons is ``overwhelming.'' The view is shared by intelligence officials not just in Israel and the United States, but in many European capitals.

For years the issue looked like a problem for the future. Not any more. Glyn Davies, the U.S. envoy to the IAEA says Iran ``is either very near or in possession'' of enough low-enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon.

Imagine Iran -- the country whose new defense minister is wanted by the Interpol for bombings in Argentina -- in possession of nuclear weapons. Imagine Iran's allied Islamic militants, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, in possession of nuclear materials.

Now the Obama administration will likely engage in a round of tightening sanctions, ``crippling sanctions'' is what Washington has warned would follow. The problem is that the new sanctions look weak even before they start. Iran's friend, Venezuela, says it will provide gasoline, and Russia's foreign minister already announced that despite making nice with the United States, it still doesn't support sanctions.

So, if diplomacy did not work, and if sanctions end up failing, it seems highly likely we will have to move to the next and possibly final step.

That is where the most difficult decision of the Obama presidency comes. Obama could face a choice between two terrible options. Choice One: Accept a world in which the Islamic Republic of Iran has nuclear weapons, in which the best-case scenario involves a nuclear arms race in the entire Middle East, with Sunni-ruled countries fearing the bomb in the hands of Shiite Iran, whose ideology calls for spreading Islamic revolution. Imagine the unstable Middle East awash in nuclear materials.

That's the best-case scenario. Others are simply catastrophic. Obama's Choice Two: Take military action and risk starting yet another war in the Middle East.

Yes, Mr. Obama, this is the job you said you wanted.

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