The Fog Of Pre-Preemptive Strike Posturing:
I finally got around to watching The Fog of War last night (I know, my Netflix queue priorities are all screwed up), but whether you've seen it or not it's particularly timely - and a bit chilling in the current environment.  McNamara's contrition about the fact that as things were escalating in Vietnam there were no high-level talks between the US and North Vietnamese, and the fact that it took a monumental ignorance of Vietnamese history to think that they were going to be pawns of the Chinese, puts one in mind of the nasty combination of ignorance and egos involved in the current US/Iran brouhaha ... and I know I'm not the first person to point this out.  This story on the deep roots of the Iranian perspective, though, kind of drives the point home.  A little more empathy and communication (see McNamara's lessons), and a little less Texan swagger, would go a long way right about now.