Something Wicked?

Gahlran smells it coming: “The Fleet Positions Itself for War.”

Iran continues to pursue a provocative foreign policy in Iraq and at Natanz. The US NCA is duly provoked. The options left to the US administration are to maintain status quo, compromise, escalate or climb down from the tree and punt to the next administration.

The status quo gets us closer to Iranian nukes, further away from honorable withdrawal from Iraq and kills/maims any number of coalition servicemen there along the way. Not very attractive, but neither are the alternatives.

It is difficult to suss out what common interests we share with Iran worth compromising on, apart from the fact powers behind the Ahmadinejad throne possibly want confrontation even less than we do, with gas running at $4.00 to the gallon. Possibly.

Escalation is nothing like risk free. The Iranians have been preparing for just that contingency ever since 1979 – we only think we’ve seen asymmetric warfare. And attacks within Iran targeting the nuclear program – as apart from the regime or Quds force skull breakers – risk aligning an otherwise disaffected younger generation that has no memory of the shah under the mullahs.

Punting doesn’t seem much like this administration’s style.

Interesting times.