Iran as a nuclear threat-what do we do..

I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis very vividly. We were worried about Armageddon,we had shelter drills,where we went underneath our tables and for me it was for the purpose of kissing our collective asses good bye. I remember one day not having a jacket with me and thinking "oh oh now I'm going to get it." What I remember most was the decision to actually have a blockage of Cuba. Nothing goes in-nothing comes in.
To this day I am not sure of the effectiveness of this or was it that Nikita Khrusheve having the political courage to back off on his threats basically saving the world from nuclear annihilation. The superpower battle for many years stabilized the world. (Who would have thought of this time as "the good old days"?
The next true nuclear threat came in 1981 when Israel under Operation Opera,made a surprise air strike on Iraqi's nuclear reactor in Osink (the reactor was bought from our NATO ally France who had developed a relationship with Iraq in order to have greater access to its oil. (Its amazing how oil imports effects short term global policy) Israel believed that its very existance was threatened and felt that it had no choice but to protect itself. There was no Khrusheve to negotiate with this time. While many condemned Isreal at the time, the world breathed a sigh of relief at the diminished threat of a nuclear ready Iraq.
We now turn our attention to today towards another nuclear threat in an even more unstable middle east -this time from Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sees no apparent threat to his own people because basically he is not concerned for the wellbeing of his people-thus no restraint on his part. Seems to me that the world is faced with several choices as depicted in the last two crisis.
Israel has not ruled out attacking Iran if it feels threatened and many have called for the US to make such an attack on Iran. While I understand the value of diplomacy, I wonder about its limits and at what point do you say "enough". I am not sure if we are there yet, but again,how do you negotiate with someone with no apparent conscience or politically motivated self destruction. I find myself thinking of Kennedy's strategy of the sea blockage of Cuba and its role in forcing Russia's hand.
I believe that it is failed strategy for things being all or nothing: diplomacy or attack with nothing in between. Would an air and sea blockage of Iran force Ahmadineyad's hand and would the UN buy into this strategy so that it is not seen as another US intrusion in the middle east? We cannot be seen as "occupiers". The world community has be behind this; if not it will be a failed strategy from the start.The rules and consequences are increibly different today due to the threat just one nuclear warhead being in the hands of terrorists. The instability of a nuclear Pakistan is yet another issue beyond my comprehension.
I find myself thinking about being under my classroom desk as an 11 year old. I remember my parents putting food in our basement and people building bomb shelters. I remeber writing in my school newspaper about those scary days of October. Those days feel safer and less threatening as I write about another nuclear threat today.