If you want to feel just a little more anxious about the military situation in the Iraq theater of the war, read this Christian Science Monitor piece by Patrick Lang, a former official in the Defense Intelligence Agency. Lang analyzes a basic logistics issue: lines of supply. Because virtually all of our forces’ materiel and supplies are trucked from Kuwait, the lines stretch through large swaths of southern Iraqi territory that are quiescent at present but “thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian special operations forces working with Shiite militias.” Thus, if tensions over Lebanon or nuclear-weapons development escalate further, Lang argues that Iran could essentially order a serious harassment campaign against the American supply lines, lightly guarded and operated largely by skittish Turkish and South Asian truck drivers.

Alternative routes from Jordan or Turkey are problematic and would take a while to establish, he argues, and air supply could likely replace only a small portion of the daily deliveries. “We should start building ourselves another line of supply as a backup, and we should do it soon,” he concludes – as if there aren’t any other items on our to-do list at the moment.