Iran

An important article in this months "Atlantic" reporting the results of a wargame which modelled options for a U.S. military strike against Iran.  Unfortunately it's behind the subscription wall, but the upshot is this:  the Iranian nuclear program is probably too well concealed and protected to be vulnerable to a limited strike/bombing.  And any full scale invasion of Iran would make Iraq look like Grenada in comparison. 

With Powell's retirement, the foreign policy hard liners appear to have swept the table in Washington.  But their desire to dominate the Middle East seems to be on a collision course with reality.   Will they understand that, or not?

The sad thing is that we have real potential common interests with Iran if we could drop the (to be frank) "must oppose Israel's enemies" blinders from our Middle East policy.  This interesting article by Leon Hadar in the contrarian "American Conservative" magazine is a realist take on the matter that is well worth reading if you're interested in the subject.  It's refreshingly common-sensical.

But here's a not very refreshing quote from the Atlantic Magazine article:

"Companies deciding which kind of toothpaste to market have much more rigorous, established decision-making processes to refer to than the most senior officials of the U.S. government deciding whether or not to go to war,"

Marcus Stanley