Daybreak: Has the Iranian Die Been Cast?

• CURRENT CHATTER ABOUT WAR WITH IRAN is reminiscent of the atmosphere in 2002-3. One difference: the administration is trying to put the brakes on war, rather than driving the war talk. Another difference: the letters “n” and “q.” [NYT]

• U.N. NUCLEAR INSPECTORS DEPARTED IRAN having failed to negotiate access to a certain facility and to certain scientists due to apparent Iranian intransigence. [WSJ]

• MANY ISRAELIS APPEAR MORE OR LESS RESIGNED to war sometime this year. [WP]

• MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, THE POPULAR Fatah personality, calls for a nonviolent Palestinian Arab Spring. (Marwan Barghouti is in jail; this item originally referred to Mustafa as jailed.) [NYT]

• ISRAEL MUST CONTRIVE A NEW LAW that does not exempt yeshiva students from military service, the High Court rules. [Haaretz]

• MORMONS BAPTIZED ANNE FRANK for the first time in over a decade, though not for the first time ever. Which I guess means our mothers may no longer approve. [Huff Post]

Today is Ash Wednesday, and I got in trouble for my joke last year. So consider this your public service announcement, that those people intend to have that … whatever there.