Gordon Chang’s post yesterday reveals the inroads Iran is making with anti-American elements across Latin America. This adds further credence to the belief that Iran is replicating the Soviet Union’s efforts to build global power and confront the United States on multiple fronts—and that therefore the proper response by the West is, as with the cold war, to confront and roll back Iran at every turn. Nor is it reasonable to respond that Iran is much smaller and weaker than was the USSR, and therefore should not be taken so seriously: It is through these methods that Iran becomes stronger and more powerful over time. The proper response to determined, implacable enemies (no matter how unpopular this may sound during election season) is to defeat them, especially when they are relatively weak, rather than waiting for them to become intolerably menacing. Call it a “Broken Windows” approach to international threats. For what it’s worth, here’s an essay I wrote on the subject last year, when such thoughts were still in fashion.