Senator Bill Frist just called for international trade sanctions against Iran, with the exception of medicine and food. In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, Frist, who is expected to run for the GOP presidential nomination, writes:

"IRAN'S RULING mullahs have waged a 26—year campaign to suppress dissent, support terror and pursue a nuclear weapons program. In recent weeks, it has become clear that international efforts to stop Iran's atomic program have failed to bear fruit. Unless we act quickly, the United States will have a nuclear crisis on its hands. ...?If we let Tehran develop nuclear weapons covertly... Iran's theocrats will have little reason to negotiate with anyone. The U.S. needs to act before a regime that has denied the real Holocaust unleashes another."

Senator Frist is not a Senate Majority Leader in the style of LBJ. He doesn't bang heads together, and sometimes he appears ineffectual. But he can think clearly about international threats, it seems. That is one major plus for a potential president, and it puts him immediately above the likely Democrat candidates.