The Bush administration policy of preventive war seems to have backfired: the Iranian Defense Minister, Ali Shamkhani, "has warned that Iran may resort to pre-emptive strikes to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities," presumably by the United States, according to "an interview on Al Jazeera television" Wednesday "in response to a question about the possibility of an American or Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear projects," as cited in the New York Times (Nazila Fathi, "Iran Says It May Pre-empt Attack Against Its Nuclear Facilities," 20 August 2004, A4). According to the article, Vice Admiral Shamkhani declared in the interview that Iran "'will not sit to wait for what others will do to us'"; he added, "'Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly. Any nation, if it feels threatened, can resort to that.'" Thanks to the National Security Strategy of the United States (2002), wherein chapter five of the historic document the concept of preventive ('pre-emptive') war was officially codified, rogue states such as Iran now feel entitled to exercise that doctrine. To Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld, and Dr. Wolfowitz, I ask: What have you unleashed upon the world?