Devilishly Durable

It is a truth universally recognised if not widely acknowledged, that official enemies are, like franchise supervillains, most convenient when continually and serially defeated without being actually destroyed. A certain balance is necessary: the threat to civilisation must be credible enough for a mainstream journalist to portend with a straight face, and this can be a good deal more difficult than it sounds. Those who remember the collapse of the USSR may recall Washington's increasingly hilarious search for a plausible existential threat in the form of Nicaragua, Panama and Libya; but for the present Iran looks set to retain its long-held place as the go-to Great Satan. Before the assault by the Righteous State and the wannabe Nobel peace-tribble, the mad mullahs were, as usual, just short of producing uranium suitable for manufacturing an independent nuclear deterrent; now, after the stunning success by the Rughteous State and the wannabe Nobel peace-tribble, it seems the mad mullahs are, as usual, just short of producing uranium suitable for manufacturing an independent nuclear deterrent. Those same greasy Middle Eastern proclivities that cause the Islamic Republic to have proxies where nice people have allies apparently led the government to move or conceal its stockpiles instead of letting them be bombed; which at the very least should make a workable excuse for some pacifying Fourth of July fireworks.