Here in New York, the Ahmadinejad show continues. Yesterday, the Iranian President met with a delegation from Neturei Karta, the haredi Jewish sect whose theology makes submission the ultimate virtue (the State of Israel is an abomination, Jews should be the meek, loyal subjects of whomever happens to be ruling them.) Tonight, he will sit down for an iftar dinner sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), aka The Quakers.

The AFSC’s announcement of the event - twenty-four hours after Ahmadinejad delivered a rambling speech at the UN which zigzagged from God’s grand design to “Zionist domination” of financial and monetary centers - has more than a touch of comedy about it. “A major purpose is to continue dialogue with the Iranian people and their president,” gushed the organization’s General Secretray, Mary Ellen Mcnish. “Please hold us in the light as we endeavor to build bridges of understanding.”

In drawing that seamless link between the president and the people, the AFSC appears to have been suckered by Ahmadinejad’s line that in Iran, “freedom is absolute, and it is the law that rules.” Others are less sanguine. Hooman Majd, for example, observed that Ahmadinejad’s rhetorical antics were deployed with a domestic audience in mind, given the prospect that he could face a challenge next year from his predecessor, Mohammed Khatami.

Ahmadinejad knows that his UN speech “plays well to a domestic audience predisposed to believe that American foreign policy is hegemonic by nature,” wrote Majd. “Ahmadinejad also knows that the anti-Zionist rhetoric plays well in Iran, as it does across the Arab world. Only the intellectual and highly educated classes in the region find it self-defeating if not noxious - and the Iranians in this class are in any event unlikely to be voting for him in 2009. Well aware of a powerful political movement back home to challenge him for the presidency next June, he likes to use his visits to New York to burnish his image as a defender of Iranian rights. Nor does it hurt to have on display his status as a world leader afforded wide media coverage, his cultivated image of piety, and his willingness to engage Americans and even the U.S. government.”

It is not, then, a particularly dignified spectacle: insipid peaceniks fawning over a tyrant engaged in crude electioneering who can always roll out the militias if things don’t go his way. But in the broad scheme of things, that is incidental.

They key point which the AFSC doesn’t appear to realize is that the world has been conducting a dialogue with Iran for quite some time. The EU, the IAEA, various UN envoys and even the US have all sat down with Tehran’s theocrats to try and bring the crisis over the nuclear program to an end.

Thusfar, those efforts have failed. And now, the EU is warning that Iran is coming closer to a nuclear warhead. David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, has analyzed the data on uranium enrichment contained an IAEA report issued yesterday. As Reuters reports: “To date, Iran has produced nearly 1,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium, said the report — close to what Albright says is the 1,500-pound minimum needed to produce the 45-60 pounds needed for a simple nuclear bomb under optimal conditions. And with Iran’s centrifuges running ever more smoothly, it ‘is progressing toward this capability and can be expected to reach it in six months to two years,’ says Albright.

We are, then, nearing the point of no return. At the same time, it is painfully clear that cogent policy options are in short supply. The attention focused upon the worsening global financial crisis, and the massive strains that dealing with it will place on the US Treasury, could further ease Iran’s path to nuclear status.

It is sobering to note that Michael Rubin, writing in Jane’s Intelligence Review, is examining scenarios for what might happen after Iran produces a nuclear warhead. Rubin argues that the “containment” strategy purused by the US during the Cold War might be wheeled out again.

“The containment policy would not seek to deter use of nuclear weapons by Iran or its allies,” Rubin writes. “Washington believes itself able to deter Tehran from the use of nuclear weapons with its own advanced, extensive and secure nuclear arsenal. Rather, containment would attempt to prevent an Iran emboldened by nuclear weapons using its proxies or conventional forces in regional operations to extend the country’s influence.”

Rubin, however, is pessimistic when it comes to current preparations for containment:

“Neither the Bush administration, candidates to succeed him, nor Congress have yet proposed streamlining of the weapons procurement process, augmented deployments of forces, especially air force and navy, to the region, upgrading of existing facilities or establishment of new bases, or re-prioritisation of security and democracy concerns along Iran’s northern flank. This suggests that the US currently remains ill prepared for any containment strategy, and is unlikely to be in a position to effectively contain a nuclear Iran in coming years.”

If Rubin is correct, then Ahmadinejad’s future visits to the UN will take on a quite different meaning.