By the rockets’ red glare

Talk about overcompensating, in a demonstration worthy of Xerxes, the Iranians test fired not one, but between seven to nine missiles. Someone needs a time out. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates helpfully characterized the Iranian action as “signaling”, and Undersecretary of State William Burns claimed “Iran's real nuclear progress has been less than the sum of its boasts.” This comes during the seventh-inning stretch between the primaries and the national political conventions and it begs the question of which candidate do the Iranians hope will benefit from Iran’s acting out. Officials are still analyzing the data connected to the missiles that were fired for size and performance, but seemed pretty certain that a missile capable of hitting Israel, the Shahab-3, was among them. And the test, of course, put the market on edge as the price of oil increased $2.24 before falling later and closing flat. Iranian Gen. Hossein Salami declared “our finger is always on the trigger.” In the words of Sting, one hopes that the Iranians “love their children too.”