As leaders in Washington face a battle over massive cuts to military spending, they should remember that the outside world continues to turn — and that Iranian nuclear centrifuges continue to spin.

The $500 billion in indiscriminate defense cuts threatened by “sequestration” — part of the so-called fiscal cliff that Congress failed to resolve — could embolden Iran to speed up its nuclear enrichment program, presuming that the United States cannot credibly threaten military force to stop it. This could hasten the inevitable showdown between the U.S. and Iran over the latter’s nuclear ambitions, forcing us to answer the difficult question of what we will do if sanctions and threats fail to dissuade Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

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