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“I swear I believe Armageddon is near,” Ronald Reagan confided to his diary on June 7, 1981. He had just learned that the Israelis had bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. Rather than consult with the Americans in advance, Prime Minister Menachem Begin had informed the United States only “after the fact,” Reagan noted tersely, and was insisting that “the plant was preparing to produce nuclear weapons for use on Israel.”

Begin felt he couldn’t risk waiting until the French, who had sold Iraq the reactor, actually shipped uranium to power it, “because of the radiation that would be loosed over Baghdad.” “I can understand his fear but feel he took the wrong option,” Reagan wrote. “He should have told us & the French, we could have done something to remove the threat.” But there was no question of condemning the assault. “We are not turning on Israel—that would be an invitation for the Arabs to attack,” Reagan continued. “It’s time to raise H--l world wide for a settlement of the ‘middle-east’ problem. What has happened is the result of fear & suspicion on both sides. We need a real push for a solid peace.” Armageddon did not arrive, of course, and neither did peace. A few months later, assassins gunned down President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. (Sadat, who led the 1973 war against Israel, died because he’d had the courage, in 1979, to sign a peace treaty—with Begin, as it happens.)

Then, the following June, Israel reacted to the shooting of one of its diplomats in London by invading Lebanon. In early August, Israel unleashed such a brutal bombardment that Reagan lost his cool with Begin. “I was angry,” he wrote. “I told him it had to stop or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7 month old baby with its arms blown off.” Like so much of the drama in the Middle East, it all sounds a bit familiar: Israel, beset by enemies, striking out preemptively; the United States supporting Israel, but frustrated by the measures Israel deems necessary to ensure its security; the word holocaust deployed, maybe a little too casually; Armageddon pacing in the wings; peace in the role of Godot. Click here to find out more! But things do change in the Middle East: in fits and starts, the pattern, since the collapse of the Oslo peace talks more than 10 years ago, has been for them to get worse.

It is hard to imagine any Israeli prime minister accepting the responsibility, in the sweep of Jewish history, of standing by while a sworn regional enemy devises nuclear weapons. As Jeffrey Goldberg reports in our cover story, this prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, intends to act against Iran if sanctions fail and the United States does not strike. As Iran approaches the nuclear threshold, will it be in the American interest to act, or to press the Israelis to stand down, or to let the Israelis attack first, and then act later if necessary?

Those are among the questions looming for President Obama and his advisers. Every answer is bad. Robert D. Kaplan argues in this issue that containing a nuclear Iran is the least-bad option. Even so, he warns, if we go down that path, we will still be faced with the prospect of fighting limited wars, possibly against a nuclear opponent. An American administration that was grappling seriously with these options would be doing everything possible, short of war, to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, if only to be able to credibly request world support for eventual military action. It would also be pushing very hard for progress toward Middle East peace. It might, for example, be seeking a freeze on settlement construction, recognizing that it is in Israel’s interest to make painful concessions in advance of anyone’s act of regional war.

The Obama administration, in other words, shows signs of preparing—even raising some “H--l”—to contain the coming turbulence, and to possibly wrest some gains from it. But the Americans can do only so much. It will be up to the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Iranians, and their neighbors to show that, like Begin and Sadat, they can still take chances, not just on Armageddon, but on peace.

Amanda Lucidon for The New York Times

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., left, with the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. President Obama will need help from both to move forward with his agenda. More Photos >

WASHINGTON — By now, President Obama can hardly be under any illusions about the depth of the partisan divide as he seeks to reboot his presidency. Yet he still seemed surprised on Wednesday night when he could not get Republicans to applaud tax cuts.

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As he boasted in his first State of the Union address that his economic program had cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, Democrats jumped to their feet to cheer. Republicans sat quietly. Mr. Obama paused as he glanced over to their side of the House chamber. “I thought I’d get some applause on that one,” he said.

If Mr. Obama thought he could take the rostrum in the House chamber and restore his image as the change agent who came to Washington to end the politics of division, he received another reminder just how hard that will be. Mr. Obama tried to recapture the magic of his yes-we-can campaign after a season of no-we-can’t governing, but conceded little if any ground to critics on either the right or the left.

It was a confident performance, more defiant than contrite, more conversational than soaring. He appealed to and scolded both parties, threatened vetoes, blamed his predecessor and poked fun at lawmakers. The agenda was largely the same, dressed up in fresh packaging, as he offered point-by-point rebuttals to the litany of critiques he hears with increasing frequency. He acknowledged only a failure to explain his policies without retreating an inch on the policies themselves. His main message: “I don’t quit.”

In the wake of last week’s Republican victory in the special election for a Massachusetts Senate seat, Mr. Obama had to tackle head-on the disappointment that has dragged down his poll numbers. He pleaded for patience and understanding. “I campaigned on the promise of change; ‘change we can believe in,’ the slogan went,” he said toward the end of the address. “And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change — or that I can deliver it.

“But, remember this,” he went on. “I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone. Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That’s just how it is.”

After a year of learning just how it is, Mr. Obama adopted again the mantle of reformer he wore the first time he addressed Congress as president a year ago. He even used the same phrase, “deficit of trust,” to describe his diagnosis, and he proposed some of the same medicine in the form of cracking down on lobbyists and special-interest spending.

But he is not in the same place he was a year ago and he gave little indication how he would change the dynamics that have frustrated much of his agenda so far. After all, when he addressed Congress last year, his strategists were developing a big-bang plan to move ahead on multiple fronts.

By the end of his first year in office, they had expected to have overhauled the health care system, enacted a market-based cap on carbon emissions blamed for climate change, imposed a new regulatory system on financial institutions, closed the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and signed a new arms control treaty with Russia. None of those have happened, and while some of the proposals quite plausibly still could, Mr. Obama left unclear his strategy for getting there.

Instead, he expressed the frustration common in the White House these days: that he has not gotten more credit for the successes he has had, particularly in pulling the economy back from the brink of a new Great Depression.

That was where the tax cuts came in. While the economic stimulus package Mr. Obama pushed through Congress last year is known largely for its spending, he pointed out that it also included a variety of tax cuts, and then repeated it in case anyone missed it. The Republicans who chose not to applaud have argued that the tax cuts were simply accompanied by too much spending.

In fact, when it comes to his program, the narrative of too much was the major notion Mr. Obama was trying to dispel. Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, the newly inaugurated Republican leader in Virginia, emphasized the point in his official response to the president’s speech. “Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much,” Mr. McDonnell said.

In the face of that judgment, shared not just by Republicans these days, Mr. Obama could have pulled back but chose to push forward. To those who said his ideas have been too ambitious, he said: “I have one simple question: How long should we wait? How long should America put its future on hold?”

The truth is, Mr. Obama is still trying to figure that out for himself. Since the Massachusetts election cost the Democrats unilateral control of the Senate, the president and his advisers have been grappling for a plan to move forward on his agenda. Some things inevitably will have to wait, and Mr. Obama’s plans since last week have been a work in progress.

The day after last week’s election, he suggested returning to the “core elements” of health care, only to have aides hours later try to walk back the statement and insist he did not necessarily mean he wanted a scaled-back plan.

Even on Wednesday, the plans seemed fluid, literally changing even in the final hours, either in substance or in presentation. When aides previewed the speech for reporters in midafternoon, they said Mr. Obama’s plan to spur lending to small businesses would draw $25 billion from repaid bailout loans. By the time he spoke in the House chamber six hours later, the amount had increased to $30 billion.

Such differences might have meant little to viewers trying to gauge whether the Mr. Obama they were watching was the same Mr. Obama they voted for. “I never thought the mere fact of my election would usher in peace, harmony and some post-partisan era,” he said.

On that, pretty much everyone could agree.

Courtesy: http://www.nytimes.com

– Here is a list of the world’s 10 most deadly quakes over the last 40 years. The list does not include Haiti’s magnitude 7.0 earthquake Tuesday where officials estimate the death toll at more than 45,000.

- July 27, 1976: A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in China killed at least 242,000 people.

- Dec. 26, 2004: A magnitude 9 quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed 226,000 people in 12 countries, including 165,700 in Indonesia and 35,400 in Sri Lanka, and affected 2.4 million.

- May 12, 2008: A magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Eastern China killed 88,000 people and affected nearly 45 million people in 10 provinces.

- Oct. 8, 2005: A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Pakistan killed 75,000 people and affected nearly 5.3 million people.

- May 31, 1970: A magnitude 7.9 quake in Peru killed 67,000 and affected 3.2 million.

- June 20, 1990: A magnitude 7.4 earthquake in Iran killed at least 40,000 and affected 710,000.

- Dec. 26, 2003: A magnitude 6.5 earthquake in Iran killed 27,000 and affected 268,000.

- Dec. 7, 1988: A magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Armenia killed at least 25,000 and affected more than 1.6 million.

- Sept. 16, 1978: A magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Iran killed 25,000 and affected 40,000

- Feb. 4, 1976: A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Guatemala killed more than 23,000 and affected nearly 5 million.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) — Rescue teams and relief supplies arrived in Haiti on Thursday to help drag anyone alive from debris after its capital city was practically flattened by the strongest earthquake in the Caribbean region in more than 200 years.

Iceland’s search-and-rescue teamÂÂ arrives in Haitian capital with packages of drinking water.(Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced it would provide 100 million dollars very rapidly in emergency financing to Haiti.

“I have asked staff to look into all the possibilities and I am pleased to announce that we are able to make 100 million dollars available very quickly,” said IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn at a news conference in Washington.

U.S. President Barack Obama said his country was offering 100 million U.S. dollars in emergency assistance for Haiti after it was jolted by a quake of 7.3 magnitude on Tuesday.

Obama said the first dispatch of U.S. rescue and relief workers were on the ground and at work. A survey team would be missioned to identify priority areas for assistance.

Mexico on Thursday sent its fourth aircraft carrying more than 50 relief workers as well as food and medical supplies.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon had earlier pledged 15 million dollars to help reconstruction in the poverty-stricken country, where one third of its 9 million people was believed to have been affected.

Britain announced a 6.2-million-pound aid package (9.9 million dollars) on Thursday, stressing efforts to save lives in the initial stage of relief work.

“The really pressing requirement in the hours ahead is the capability that we will be offering — that ability to offer cutting equipment and lifting equipment to get people out from the buildings that have collapsed around them,” said British International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander.

A British search and rescue team organised by the Department For International Development (DFID) wait to fly to Haiti, after Gatwick Airport was closed due to heavy snowfall, January 13, 2010.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

The British government said its rescue team arrived in the neighboring Dominican Republic Thursday morning and would reach the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince within the day.

A 50-member Chinese rescue team was among the first to arrive in Port-au-Prince in early Thursday. The Chinese peacekeeping unit in Haiti has mobilized 53 peacekeeping police and more than 400 local people to look for survivors from under the rubble before the rescue team arrived.

Countries including Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Norway and Canada have also pledged aid to the Caribbean nation.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that it would take days to get the death toll from the devastating earthquake in Haiti, but the figure was estimated to be “very high.”

Mauricio Bustamante, operation coordinator of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies based in Panama City, said up to 100,000 people might have died in the quake.

At least 36 UN staff members have been confirmed dead in the earthquake, a spokesman for the UN mission in Haiti told reporters.

The top UN humanitarian coordinator gave priority to sending doctors and medical supplies to Haiti.

“The local medical infrastructure is both badly damaged and overwhelmed by the number of injuries,” said John Holmes. “It’s a top priority to get more doctors there, more medical teams, field hospitals and more medical supplies to make sure we can tackle that problem.”

After that, the basic needs are water, food and emergency shelter, added Holmes.

However, damaged infrastructure could impede aid inflows. Haiti’s main seaport was surrounded by debris in the water, which could make access difficult, said Holmes.

Port-au-Prince’s international airport was reopened on Wednesday, but it was feared the airport might not be able to handle the sudden influx of huge aid cargoes.

China delivers aid, rescue team to quake-hit Haiti

Members of a Chinese rescue team with sniffer dogs are ready to board a plane leaving for quake-hit Haiti, at the Capital International Airport in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 13, 2010. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday local time, collapsing a hospital and damaging government buildings in its capital city of Port-au-Prince. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli) Photo Gallery>>>

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — China sent an emergency rescue team Wednesday evening to quake-hit Haiti, where several thousands of lives may have been claimed.

Chinese leadership expressed sympathy with and deep condolence to the Haitian people for their loss in the strongest ever quake in about 200 years in the Caribbean islands country, with which China has no diplomatic relations. Full story

China donates $1 mln to quake-hit Haiti

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — The Red Cross Society of China has decided to donate one million U.S. dollars of emergency aid to quake-hit Haiti, said a statement from the State Council on Wednesday.

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday local time, collapsing a hospital and damaging government buildings in its capital city of Port-au-Prince. Full story

World Bank to provide additional emergency aid to Haiti

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — The World Bank said Wednesday it will provide an additional 100 million U.S. dollars in emergency grant funding to support recovery and reconstruction in Haiti in response to a magnitude-7.0 earthquake that caused extensive damage and casualties in the Caribbean nation on Tuesday.

“This is a shocking event and it is crucial that the international community supports the Haitian people at this critical time,” a World Bank press release quoted bank group President Robert B. Zoellick as saying. Full story

16 UN staffers confirmed dead in Haiti: Ban

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said here Wednesday that 16 UN staffers were confirmed dead in Haiti in the wake of Tuesday’s devastating earthquake.

The 16 include 11 Brazilians, one Argentine, three Jordanian police officers, and one Chadian officer, said Ban.Full story

Earthquake crushes thousands of buildings in Haiti

SANTO DOMINGO, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — A major earthquake rocked Haiti on Tuesday, crushing thousands of buildings, including the presidential palace and the U.N. peacekeeping headquarters, and trapping untold numbers of people in the rubble of the capital city.

The devastation from the magnitude-7.3 quake, the strongest ever recorded on the poor Caribbean island, was so complete that it seemed likely the death toll would run into the thousands, according to reports monitored here. Full story

“Scale of catastrophe in Haiti is very high,” says UN peacekeeping chief

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — The United Nations deals with humanitarian crises all the time but the devastating earthquake in Haiti has stricken especially close to home, said the head of UN peacekeeping forces Alain Le Roy here Wednesday.

With the number of fatalities among UN staff members rising, LeRoy said the emotion is “extremely high.”

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) — A total of 100 to 150 UN personnel were trapped under the rubble of the main building of the UN mission in Port au Prince, Haiti, which collapsed in a powerful earthquake, UN officials said Wednesday.

The UN staff members were still working at the headquarters of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) when the earthquake struck, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters at UN Headquarters.

When asked about the condition of MINUSTAH head, Hedi Annabi, Ban said that information is still “scanty” and the UN currently has no “exact information” about his safety.

Ban said that Annabi, a Tunisian, and his Brazilian deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa, are “as yet unaccounted for.”

The Force Commander’s office of MINUSTAH was housed in the Christopher Hotel, a five-storey building built in the early 60s.

“Many people are still trapped inside,” the secretary-general noted, saying that he has been in close consultation with the governments of Haiti, the United States and others.

Troops, mostly from Brazil, serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) have been working through the night to reach those trapped under the rubble, and several badly injured people have been rescued and transported to the mission’s logistics base which remains intact.

Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Alain Le Roy told journalists that fewer than 10 UN staff were pulled out of the collapsed Christopher Hotel, with some of them confirmed to have died.

Less than five people have been confirmed dead, Le Roy said, adding that the Montana Hotel, where some UN personnel lived, also collapsed.

UN Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark told reporters that some 38 members of her staff are unaccounted for.

Buildings and infrastructure in Port au Prince suffered extensive damage, while basic services, including water and electricity are near the brink of collapse.

The full extent of casualties, which could number in the hundreds, is still unknown, Ban said.

“There is no doubt that we are facing a major humanitarian emergency and that a major relief effort will be required,” he said.

Expressing gratitude to nations rushing aid to the earthquake’s victims, he called for the world to “come to Haiti’s aid in this hour of need.”

The UN, he said, is also mobilizing an emergency response team to help coordinate humanitarian relief efforts and is expected to be on the ground shortly.

“We will immediately release 10 million dollars from the Central Emergency Fund (CERF),” the secretary-general said.

The UN chief said that he will dispatch Edmond Mulet, his former Special Representative to Haiti and current Assistant-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, to the country.

“The first priority is search and rescue,” with teams from the U.S., China, France, the Dominican Republic and other nations on their way to Haiti, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told reporters.

The UN, he said, will launch a flash appeal to kick start what “will certainly be a major operation and a major relief effort.”

MINUSTAH was set up in 2004 and currently has more than 9,000 military and police personnel and nearly 2,000 civilian staff.

Some 3,000 of the mission’s troops and police are in and around Port au Prince, and will help to maintain order and assist in relief efforts. They have also started to clear some of the capital’s main roads to allow aid and rescuers to reach those in need.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council Wednesday observed a one-minute silence to send “heart-felt condolence” to the dead, including UN peacekeepers and civilian staff, in the Haiti earthquake.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and members of the Security Council all stood up for one-minute silence to mourn the victims in the devastating earthquake at the request of the Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, Zhang Yesui, who holds the rotating Security Council presidency for January.