John Pod: To be sure. But the Perry/McNamara point is that the general level of public anxiety about these things is lower than during the Cold War, while the nasty possibilities are far more numerous. And that’s a good point to make.

I do, too, find steam rising from my scalp when I read things like this . (Similarly with GWB’s promise to O’Reilly in the election campaign that Iran “will not get nuclear weapons.”) The admin. should be absolutely shut-mouthed about this — about what we might do, what we expect, and so on. Pronouncements like this are just bluster — talking loud while giving the impression we’re unwilling to use our stick. That, I am sure, at any rate, is how they sound in Tehran and Pyongyang. Likewise the threat of taking Iran/NK to the UN. Didn’t these admin loudmouths see “Team America”?

The Iraq attack gave us some street cred, but that’s all dissipated now in the silly waffle about “democracy” and “defeating the insurgents.” What ARE we willing to do about the larger nuke threat? Anything? Or is the admin.

just quietly, despairingly, hoping the big white flash doesn’t happen on their watch? Sorry if that sounds cynical, but I seem to know an awful lot of people — sensible, conservative people — who are even more cynical than that.