Alas, clearing up some inevitable points of confusion on the Iran post.
It seems clear to me that we don’t have any good or even any plausible military option to prevent the Iranians from moving forward on the nuclear program. So whether or not such an adventure would be ill-advised or not, is an academic point. The fact that we’re pinned down in Iraq and at the mercy of Iranians there only makes the point more clear.
My point on latent military threats is a more general one. Maintaining some degree of strategic ambiguity about the use of force is essential in any case like this. Here though it’s a limited one since it’s a more or less idle threat. They must know it; hopefully we do too.
