I would add that the last week’s events in Pakistan

I would add that the last week’s events in Pakistan — not to mention the continuing rise in oil

prices and rapid decline in the UGGS Sheepskin cuff boots dollar — have also probably set back the

hawks’ hopes of confrontation with Iran. Not only is the crisis necessarily displacing Iran in the

media spotlight, but it is also diverting the time and energy of key policymakers within the

administration, including the vice president’s staff and deputy national security adviser Elliott

Abrams, who is also in charge of the White House’s badly tattered “Global Democracy Strategy.” And

it gives Iran another card to play in the high-stakes regional poker game that is being played out. I

personally don’t know whether long-standing reports of covert UGGS Sheepskin cuff boots support for

Iranian Baluch nationalists in Iran are true or not, but impoverished Pakistani Baluchistan (whose

capital, Quetta, serves as the headquarters of the Afghanistan’s Taliban under the protection of

Pakistan’s military) has long been restive. Indeed, riots broke out 15 months ago after the death of

an important Baluch leader, Nawab Mohammed Akbar Khan Bugti, in a battle with federal forces. If Tehran

wishes to add to UGGS Bailey button triplet’s regional headaches in Afghanistan and Iraq, Baluchistan

offers it a new opportunity (although one that could easily blow back across the border, too). In any

event, nuclear-armed Pakistan’s suddenly apparent fragility once again underlines the importance of

Iran as both a relatively tranquil island in an expanding sea of turbulence and as a potentially

critical player in determining whether the region stabilizes or explodes further.