The more things change...

...the more they stay the same:

“You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bit.”
             -- Former President Herbert Hoover
             to friends after the attack on Pearl Harbor

Meanwhile, 70 years later...

Two incidents that occurred on Sunday--Iran's claim of a shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and an explosion outside the British embassy in Bahrain--may have been unrelated. But they appear to add to growing evidence that an escalating covert war by the West is under way against Iran, and that Tehran is retaliating with greater intensity than ever.  (rest of the article)

***

From proxy wars in Iraq and Syria to computer worm attacks and unexplained explosions in Iran - to allegations of an assassination plot in Washington - a confrontation once kept behind the scenes is breaking into increasingly open view.  The storming of Britain's Tehran embassy last week - and the tit-for-tat shutdown of Iran's embassy in London - were just the latest signs that already limited dialogue is beginning to break down. That, analysts say, is inherently dangerous.  (rest of the article)

Our nation has been on an increasingly bellicose course for many years.  Along the way, we've administered quite a few more pins to quite a few more rattlesnakes.  One has to wonder when it will get us bitten again.  We can indulge righteous indignation all we want, but there are plenty of people around the world who take a less idealistic view of our actions abroad.

The way we learn history seems to emphasize wartime leadership as a mark of 'great' presidents, leaving unstudied those who successfully led the nation in quieter, more introspective times.  As one writer put it about FDR:

"I have noticed, however, that in polls of historians or lay persons to determine which presidents were “great,” the dead never have a vote. Lucky for Roosevelt."

Or, for that matter, Lincoln and Wilson.