the corner office

I am inclined to believe that the US will not go to war with Iran simply because the bad guy's surname is too hard to pronounce and the news networks will revolt.

In a nutshell though, Ahmadinejad sent a letter to Dubya, saying something between 'yo momma' and 'can't we all jus' get along?' and 'what's in it for me, cowboy?'. Unsurprisingly, the US administration told the handsomely bearded Mr A to get stuffed.

I make a note of this because about 2 years ago I'm sure I commented somewhere that Iran or Syria were sure to follow in Iraq's footsteps, and then a year later it seemed like Iraq was a such an unholy mess that the US wouldn't be able to look at another tin-pot dictatorship without developing that queasy feeling you get when you've puked your guts out on a bottle of Cinzano White and get a whiff of the stuff again.

Now, over the past few weeks, the rhetoric and scare-mongering are back, and the letter seems to be another punctuation mark in what is increasingly looking like a really bad story. Where will the story be in another year's time?

Jim Henley has an analysis (part 1, part 2)of what all the letter stuff means, and the comments are delightfully cynical too.