[PHP] date problem

[Marc Fromm]

I am comparing to dates.

define('WSOFFBEGIN','09/16/2012');
$jes = 01/03/2012;

if ( date("m/d/Y", strtotime($jes)) < date("m/d/Y", strtotime(WSOFFBEGIN)) )
    {
        $error = " MUST begin after " . WSOFFBEGIN . "\n";
    }

I cannot figure out why the $error is being assigned inside the if statement, 
since the statement should be false. 01/03/2012 is not less than 09/16/2012.

Marc