"They [the United States and Israel] have decided to attack at least two countries in the region in the next three months."

-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, July 26

Ahmadinejad's claim is not supported by a shred of evidence. So what is he up to?

It is a sign that he is under serious pressure. Passage of weak U.N. sanctions was followed by unilateral sanctions by the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union. Already, reports Reuters, Iran is experiencing a sharp drop in gasoline imports as Lloyd's of London and other players refuse to insure the ships delivering them.

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The hardening is already having its effect. The Iranian regime is beginning to realize that even President Obama's patience is limited -- and that Iran may actually face a reckoning for its nuclear defiance.

All this pressure would be enough to rattle a regime already unsteady and shorn of domestic legitimacy. Hence Ahmadinejad's otherwise inscrutable warning about an Israeli attack on two countries. (Said Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Fox News: "Who is the second one?") It is a pointed reminder to the world of Iran's capacity to trigger, through Hezbollah and Syria, a regional conflagration.

This is the kind of brinkmanship you get when leaders of a rogue regime are under growing pressure. The only hope to get them to reverse course is to relentlessly increase their feeling that, if they don't, the Arab states, Israel, the Europeans and America will, one way or another, ensure that ruin is visited upon them.

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