The Yorkshire Ranter avoids the topic of rugby, but does summarises the current strategic situation - the US carrier groups are refurbishing (well, the Kitty Hawk just left harbour for fall deployment and exercises in the west pacific, and the Enterprise is "on station" but not listed in the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea, so I'm guessing in harbour picking up stores).
Nothing happening there. Don't know where Cheney gets his bluster from.
The US is just not positioned to do anything silly before spring, makes the rhetoric coming out look kinda impotent.