OP-ED: The New Cold War, By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, New York Times, May 14, 2008

Nice piece. Doesn't make me want to change anything I wrote back in early 2005 in the "Mr. President ..." piece for Esquire: we get leverage or Tehran vetoes. Simple as that. Bush & Co. think leverage can be gained militarily and with sanctions.

They continue to be proven wrong.

Still, a bit much to redeploy term "Cold War." Iran isn't "what's next," just "what's left."

That's my problem with Bobbitt's Terror and Consent: terrorism, as I wrote back in both books, isn't "what's next," just "what's left" after superpower rivalry is gone and state-on-state war disappears. There is no sense in making either our foreign policy or our grand strategy terror-centric. It is not the dominant dynamic of our age, or even the dominant security agenda. Globalization is.

Define and defend the positive, and don't confuse "friction" (terror) with "force" (globalization).

In fact, let the force guide and protect you, young padawan!

(Thanks: jarrod myrick)