Since the coastal sage scrub melds into some 20 other plant communities, the gnatcatcher's habitat offers a perfect pretext for saving the entire ecology of Southern California.

Hunting for a fugitive slave would be a perfect pretext for an invasion of this house- and perhaps worse-was She left the thought there.

The Gallic request afforded Caesar the perfect pretext to expand his intervention as "the savior and not the conqueror of Gaul,".

With the hawkish party being then dominant in the Ottoman court, the incident was seen as a perfect pretext for war with a weakened Venice.

It was the perfect pretext for the United States' annexation of Texas.

He had to know that if she did want to get rid of him as her flag captain, he was offering her the perfect pretext.

Jefferson told me he has a perfect pretext if we ever need it.

She had a perfect princessly pretext.

A cabinet dispute over the railways gave Botha the perfect pretext to relieve himself of Hull.

At worst, it could furnish the perfect pretext for a military attack on Iran.