So the Iranians seized some British "warships" this week, and arrested eight British naval officers. That's what the Iranians announced in the morning, and that's all we've heard. The chatterers were agog. Why would the Iranians do such a crazy thing? Do they really want war (If that isn't a good old-fashioned causus belli, what is?)? Etc.Yes, they're crazy, no doubt. But they're not stupid. And if an Iranian action seems stupid, you're probably misinterpreting it. There's a perfectly straightforward explanation for the whole episode: The Brits were laying down a network of sensors to detect the movement of ships toward major Iraqi oil terminals. The Iranians considered that a bit of a threat. So they attacked.And why, you might ask, did the Iranians feel threatened?Because they were planning to attack (or have their surrogates attack) the oil terminals, silly.And why attack the oil terminals?Because they want to defeat President Bush in November, and they figure if they can get the price of oil up to around $60 a barrel, he'll lose to Kerry.

Wrap your brain around this:

· The Policy Director for the Intelligence Division of the Department of Homeland Security - who has access to classified information on all our ports, airports, and everything else pertaining to national security - is a Moslem with direct ties to Islamic radicals under indictment by the FBI.· This individual, named Faisal Gill, received his security clearances despite his lying on his clearance forms about his ties to Islamist organizations. When his deception was disclosed, he was suspended last March - and then reinstated with his clearances intact.· The reason he got the job, received his clearance, and was reinstated after being suspended, was pressure from the single most influential Republican activist and lobbyist in Washington, Grover Norquist.

The Bush administration has clearly decided to try to "manage" Iraq and "finesse" Iran, hoping to muddle through until the election and then, if victorious, consider its options in the broader theater. The president and his top advisers evidently want to avoid "new adventures" between now and November.But this is a very dangerous strategy, because it leaves the initiative, in Iraq and elsewhere, entirely in the hands of people like Zarqawi and his longtime Iranian sponsors. Indeed, it seems to me that doing nothing is an open invitation to "new adventures" in the Middle East, in Europe, and in the United States.You don't need classified information to see this; it's right in front of our noses. Yet we refuse to see it. This is what intelligence failures are really about: denial of the most obvious facts about the world. And it's what policy failures are about as well: refusal to take the obvious steps to protect our citizens, our allies, and our national interests.

There is a photograph prominently displayed in the Vietnamese Communist War Remnants Museum (formerly known as the "War Crimes Museum") in Saigon (called Ho Chi Minh City by the Communists). The photograph, in a room dedicated to foreign activists who contributed to the Communist victory over America in the Vietnam War, shows Senator John Kerry being greeted by Comrade Do Muoi, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

The most disastrous news to come out of Iraq this week was the demand by the new Iraqi Interim Government for custody of Saddam Hussein. We are reaping the moldy harvest of the American liberal obsession for legalism. All one had to do is see the farce of Slobodan Milosevic’s trial to know what judicial lunacy awaits a similar tribunal travesty for Saddam.Yet this is suddenly the least of our worries. Turning Saddam over to the Iraqis means he will escape from custody. Through bribery or blackmail or force, the Iraqis will either let him escape or be unable to prevent it - which means all the treasure and blood America has spilled to liberate Iraq will have been in vain.