MARCHING ORDERS. Back in 2002, months before U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad, American soldiers were told they would be heading for Iraq. At least that's what a soldier in Hinesville, Georgia, a town outside the army base of Fort Stewart, told me last weekend. Now the news is different. Soldiers in three separate units in Fort Stewart have been saying they are now being informed that they will soon be deployed for 12 to 18 months -- and they should plan on going to Iran. At least that's what I heard from an army wife in Hinesville. I didn't really believe her. Still, I mentioned it at a recent NYU Law School symposium, "The Mirage of the State: Fragmentation, Fragility, and Failure and the Implications on Law and Security." (We just called it the "Failed States" event.) A woman sitting next to me said she had heard the same thing from a lieutenant colonel she knows. "He has been told that they are going to Iran," she recalled. Soldiers are told to prepare for the worst-case scenario. It may be nothing more than that. But it's worth paying attention. --Tara McKelvey
