You've got to hand it to the Bush Administration. Even while they're digging up anthrax in Maryland, while Los Alamos can't account for all of its plutonium stocks and North Carolina teeters on the brink, while Congress has given the go-ahead for "mini-nukes" and production of nuclear triggers is set to resume, while at least a few people are speaking out about the poisoning of Iraq and Afghanistan for time immemorial, and, yes, while not a whiff of a banned weapons programme has yet been uncovered in Iraq; the Administration is not resting on its laurels.
Iran is, as we know, coming under much scrutiny for its nuclear weapons programme, a blockade of North Korea is under consideration and Richard Perle "can't rule out" a "surgical strike", Syria's back in the gun sights, and now Libya is being warned over its "pursuit of WMD". (Meanwhile, al-Qaeda may have pinched a 727 and, "As many as 30 suspected terrorists may still be in the United States because of continuing flaws in the county's visa program and poor communication between federal agencies." But, you know, boys will be boys.)
Assuming (for the sake of argument) that the Bush Administration isn't "agressively pursuing" nuclear armageddon, one must conclude that it's probably bluffing. (How else explain the confluence of the bluster with new warnings lamenting Dubya's "imperial over-stretch" -- specifically that "our policy in Afghanistan is definitely on track to fail," and that Iraq's reconstruction is "in chaos"? ) Or more likely that it figures that the world will put up a few contrary bleats, then capitulate just as fully as it did over the slaughter of Iraq.
Shall we prove the Administration wrong?