Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

What Iranian bigmouth Ahmadinejad doesn’t understand about America

The Iranian president was going on today about a secret American plan to sabotage Pakistan’s nukes. I thought he might be onto something in a Seymour Hersh-like way until I got to his revelation of American plans for a "massive presence" of presumably American and allied troops in Pakistan. I can honestly say I don’t ...

Getty Images
Getty Images
Getty Images

The Iranian president was going on today about a secret American plan to sabotage Pakistan's nukes. I thought he might be onto something in a Seymour Hersh-like way until I got to his revelation of American plans for a "massive presence" of presumably American and allied troops in Pakistan. I can honestly say I don't know of one American, in government or out, who thinks that sending a bunch of troops into Pakistan is a good idea. Not one.

The Iranian president was going on today about a secret American plan to sabotage Pakistan’s nukes. I thought he might be onto something in a Seymour Hersh-like way until I got to his revelation of American plans for a "massive presence" of presumably American and allied troops in Pakistan. I can honestly say I don’t know of one American, in government or out, who thinks that sending a bunch of troops into Pakistan is a good idea. Not one.

Meanwhile, just to be helpful, Iran has deployed submarines to the Red Sea. I wonder if this is to pressure Saudi Arabia over the crackdown in Bahrain. But that is just a guess because I don’t know enough about the Middle East to know if I am even in the ballpark. Maybe it is a response to the Israeli move of submarines through the Suez Canal nearly two years ago.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1
Tag: Iran

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