The two big headlines on the NY Times this morning (other than Obama's suurprise announcement! yawn) are Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability and, as if the paper wishes to make Putin's case for him, Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says.

Now it doesn't appear that the "US" is actually saying this. The recent NIE said Iran was providing "lethal support" to Shiite militias, and now a bunch of completely nameless people and/or angencies have said Iran is providing the "Explosively Formed Penetrator," a weapon which henceforth makes it impossible to deny that weapons are a smidge phallic in nature.

But we've all heard this song before, right? Vague sources in the government say Ira* is a threat! The sources don't get less vague so much as the certainty of their conclusions. And then Colin Powell goes and sacrifices his reputation on the altar of war with Ira*, thus becoming a national joke instead of a national hero. I wonder if they can get him back for the sequel.

But this brings up a good question to which I have no good answer. Iran, unlike Iraq of the time, may actually be posing a danger to American troops. It seems like that can't go unanswered. Yet to declare war on Iran is so collosally stupid that I think it must. War with Iran dooms the Iraq project to an even more spectacular failure than we've currently got, it puts a much wider Middle East war, and the possible destruction of Israel, on the table, and it solidifies the anti-American sentiment of the current regime - likely crushing any hope of burgeoning liberalism in the country even if we win.

So, how do you turn the other cheek in this situation? Is there a tacit understanding that as long as Iran isn't directly attacking us we won't attack them? This is why I am not a SecDef or SecState. These things always seem intractable to me.

Also, how bout that Putin? Kind of a Dictator, huh?