So, who’s up for tea with Ahmadinejad? I remember when anything less than supporting unconditional negotiations with Iran was considered crazy talk. Ah, 2008. We shall never forget you.

FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a “significant terrorist act in the United States” tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.

The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C.

Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials.

The stunning allegations come against a backdrop of longstanding tensions between Iran and the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the last year, Saudi Arabia has attempted to build an anti-Iran alliance to push back against perceived aggression by Iran in the region.

So the assassination of a high-ranking diplomat on U.S. soil followed by acts of terrorism against allied embassies, also on American soil. We went to war with Al Qaeda for the same reason. And pardon me, but I’m pretty sure a government planning acts of terrorism against another is an act of war, no?

So, how are we going to handle this? By pretending it’s just like any other law enforcement action.

Arbabsiar and a second man, Gohlam Shakuri, an Iranian official, were named in a five-count criminal complaint filed Tuesday afternoon in federal court in New York. They were charged with conspiracy to kill a foreign official and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, a bomb, among other counts.

The complaint also refers to another Iranian official but does not name him.

Which is nice and all, but they’re low-ranking fall guys. Criminal indictments against them does nothing to address the foreign government responsible for the plot itself.

So what will our response to Iran’s plotting of terror attacks on American soil be? A strongly-worded letter? Calls for more sanctions?

As Ed Morrissey says:

This isn’t a case of espionage but of sabotage or worse, which would be an act of war by anyone’s definition. If we’re not willing to respond in kind, we then send a signal to hostile nation-states around the world that attacks on the US are low-risk, high-reward affairs — and we’d better get ready for an avalanche of them.

We’ll show ourselves to be the weakling Iran suspects we’ve become.