You know, of course, that the CIA’s job is to detect sinister doings in other countries, especially as they might affect our own country. Looks like they missed something lately in the spook-filled space between Iran and Israel. Do you suppose they’re too busy running Facebook? And their domestic companion, the FBI, has been working overtime for years now, between their mighty labors concocting RussiaGate and the current program to root out election deniers and other seditious riffraff — while millions of sketchy mutts from here, there, and everywhere in the world scuttle over our border with Mexico and decant across our fruited plains — with assistance, you understand, from our own border officials — and, yet, no questions asked.
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So, it came as a big surprise when southern Israel was overrun by Hamas dudes in tricked-out pickup trucks and para-gliders on Saturday, who carried home hundreds of nubile young women to have sport with, after slaughtering hundreds more people of all ages, like rampaging bronze age Philistines. I’ll tell you what will be an even bigger surprise, though: when some organized unit of those aforesaid mutts of unknown origin who snuck across our border sets off something like a dirty bomb in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington DC. Or takes over a nuclear power station. Or… well, I wouldn’t want to put any ideas in a bad actor’s head. But you get the picture, I’m sure.

So, we’re in something that smells like uncharted territory this autumn Monday, and events are galloping faster than anyone can process. The scene looks a little bit like World War Three. At least any child of twelve could game it out that way in three easy steps. Say, the chief mullah in Teheran issues some crude remark about how Israel had it coming, yadda yadda … and the IDF forthwith fires a cruise missile up his qabaa… and next thing you know, so many mushroom clouds rise over the Levant that it looks like a shitake farm.