Count me among those who see this as a tit-for-tat on the recent sanctions announcement, plus the non-talks with US at regional Iraq conference.

Iran wants our attention and this trolley car came down the street, so they jumped on.

For the hard-liners with Ahmadinejad, they hope we'll bite on the "act of war" hyperbole that naturally flows from our neocons.

For the non-hardliners, they're hoping they can force talks by striking against our proxy (UK) instead of us.

Me? I expect Bush and Co. to screw this up royally or simply use it as a pretext for striking--perhaps employing a proxy.

But this was inevitable once we started arresting Iran's people in Iraq. Conflation, pure and simple. Like with Hezbollah last August, Iran's intent on proving it can conflate the region's various tensions at will, as always, striking against our proxies.