Beyond Saber Rattling
The United States was never in danger of becoming the "pitiful, helpless giant" that Richard Nixon conjured up in 1970 to justify the invasion of Cambodia -- and it does not risk that fate today. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Bush both need to keep that in mind to avoid stumbling into a widening of the war in Iraq.
The danger is real even if neither leader deliberately seeks such an outcome. Bush's calculated saber rattling against Iranian "triumphalism" in Iraq and the Persian Gulf has been met with new bravado from Ahmadinejad. The Iranian pugnaciously tells his neighbors that "America is weak and cannot protect you."… Seguir leyendo »