Also cited at: 58849, 58852, 58862, 58868, 58874, 58878, 97305, 97344, 97418, 97482, 98391, 98397, 98398, 148972, 148978, 148979, 150340, 150379, 150454, 150519

I think what's going on here is that the administration is beginning to face the choice that's always been there, which is, how do you deal with a country that is probably not going to be affected by economic sanctions? Do you pursue a containment course, which means essentially improving your military relationship with Saudi Arabia, the gulf states, Egypt and Israel so that you can deal with a nuclear Iran without losing your security, or do you begin to develop military options for attacking Iran? And what I think is happening now is they're -- they're realizing that they're going to have to send signals one way or the other through their military deployments of which direction they're going, and so Secretary Gates is indicating to the president that this is an important moment. We're going to have to lean one way or the other. Or can we mask it with some clever moves militarily that still shows we could go both ways?