Ghost of a flea

Nothing unusual there. Operation Juniper Cobra (JC) is about missile defence. Nothing unusual there either, it's a regular event. It's an autumn deployment. Ah, that's different. In previous years Operation JC was scheduled for spring, and that was supposed to be the case this year. So what changed?

The Pentagon claims a giant "bunker buster" bomb will be ready within months, adding a powerful weapon to the US arsenal amid tensions over Iran's nuclear program.

The 30,000lb (13,607kg) massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) is designed to knock out fortified sites buried deep underground, like those used by Iran and North Korea to protect its nuclear work.

Human history is nothing but the record of nations that have miscalculated their capacity to project power, the willingness (and ability) of their allies to support them, and the determination of their rivals to reshape the world after their own image. As the debate over Iran policy has devolved from strategy to pop psychology—as, for example, in the discussion of whether the Iranians are acting rationally or whether their apocalyptic rhetoric suggests they will do anything to hasten the Mahdi's return—the fact is that no regime consciously wishes to bring its own existence to an end. And yet states and regimes do nonetheless cease to exist. No sane person believes that the United States is suicidal, but if a nation will not or cannot defend its way of life, it has taken the first step toward its inevitable decline, which is tantamount to suicide.