Here is what I think about Iran (Disclaimer, this is just what I have pieced together from my sources. I think it would take years to really Grok Iran, so someone who does would probably re-write most of this. but Oh well):

Iran is not simple. Neither is this whole mess in Iraq, Afghanistan and the so-called 'war on trerror'. Part of the problem that got us into this mess is making the assumption that this part of asia is like Northern Europe, or North America, or some other part of the world where there is commonality of ethnic history and cultural and religious practices. Its not. The real story of the midle-east is a 4000-year-old tribal map (with all the hatreds and conflicts involved), underneath a 1500-2000 year old religious map (with all the hatreds and conflicts involved) underneath a much newer economic and nation-state map that was imposed by an entirely unrelated third parties who knew all of jack about what they were doing, they just wanted to do it fast and get out.

Now here is the kicker: none of the lines on any of these maps match up, not even close. And different players in the region appeal to one map as their grievance on one day, and a different map the next. The point is that you have conflicting loyalties, conflicting social definitions, conflicting hatreds, hated allies, beloved enemies, and groups you just kill outright as a matter of course. and on-and-on. In many nations (and Iran is a poster-boy for this), the notion of justice varies by the map you look at the world with, so in one village a single act can be a misdemenor by one way of looking at it, and by another way of looking at it that act can cost you your life and your family their property.

Its not something we are equipped to deal with. Our policy is stupid. It treats the middle east as a big vat of amorphous cultural mashed-potatoes, scooped out by nation-state boundaries, where David Mayer/Phil/EdNelson stereoptypes of 'Dem Dar Terr-orr-eests' run around invoking allah and wearing k-mart towels on their heads and rushing off to get their 72 celestial virgins in a blaze of glory. Its a ridiculous way of looking at things, and its as laughably dumb and as bigoted as the lampoons/charicatures that are in the movie 'Team America world Police'

One map shows Iran is a persian state, not an arab state. A vast majority of Iranians view themselves as having a different heritage and culture than the region-majority arabs.

By another map, Iran is also one of the only Islamic nations dominated by the Shi'a, who are a minority in the Islamic world.

So one would think most iranians think well of the US beating the hell out of a nation ruled by Sunnis and Arabs who were in turn beating the hell out of a slim Shi'a majority? Right?

Complicate matters further to get a little closer to the reality. This is still a non-islamic power beating the heck out of an islamic state, driving tanks through cities in the south of Iraq inhabited entirely by Shi'a. Shi'a who have been politically and economically oppressed and have, like many of the politically and economically oppressed in the middle east, turned to this bizarre stew of Religious and Tribal connections- which PRESTO! leads many of the Shi'a on the street to feel some affinity for the religious Shi'a mullahs who happen to be dominating the politcal/economic nation state that is, losely, 'Iran'.

So then you would think that the Mullahs ruling Iran might be angry at the US for kicking around 'their' people. Maybe not.

Because one of the long standing modern ambitions for Iran is to become a powerful and respected and persian and Shi'a power in the middle east. This ambition is expressed in two ways...

One way harks back to the Shaw of Iran: Westernize! Let the ladies out of the robes and get them into the workplace, build modern universities, secularize, get a free market going!

Another way this is expressed is via the Mullahs: Back to the future! Get the old Theocracy going, arm up as best we can, get State-Run technological innovations going in the service of our power ambitions.

So what do the Mullahs really think about the US pounding Iraq? Well, think about it this way. Their main threats to their power internally are the secularists, who like most secularists in the world see the US as an ideological symbol for what is waiting at the end of the western secular state rainbow. By demonstrating the US as a Value-less, Immoral, Dishonest bully (which is precisely how we are acting), they get a lot of mileage in undermining the secularists inside their own territory.

Meanwhile, they can inch closer to what their map (the Shi'a thocratic map) tells them is an ideal- a Shia satellite state made out of Southern Iraq (or even a new Iranian province), by doing whatever they can to help infiltrators move in and out of Iraq. This is somehting they are very good at, and in fact have been doing it for a loooong time (Remember Ansar Al Islam? eh Tom?) to undermine Saddam, kill the Kurds (one of those groups everyone kills as a matter of course), and stir up the Shi'a. Of course, nobody can prove thats what they were doing...

Oh goody, and even better for them they can bog us down in Iraq by making sure weapons and money flows in to Iraq and into the hands of Shi'a who are so very hot on the idea of killing Sunnis and killing americans.

Remember, I posted long and hard on this point before the war- this was obvious to anyone with half a brain.

So what we have done in Iraq has been emminently helpful to the one power in the region that DID have an active WMD program, that DID state-sponser terrorists, that DOES seek direct and open conflict with the US. (DO NOT associate the Iranian clerics with Osama, however, very different aims and ideas that are in direct conflict on a large number of levels).

So what do we do now?

Not much we can do now!. We may have some free heavy military force sitting around, but the troops to use it are in Iraq, desperately trying to hold it together. We don't have any reserve to draw upon, we are re-activating 50 year old grandmas into active duty, and Iran knows this. We have no allies to turn to, and Iran knows this. So our only credible possible military threat would be to bomb- but its a foregone conclusion that Iran has prepared for this, being easily in reach of Israel, who REALLY doesn't want to see an Iranian theocracy armed with a nuke and a grudge. Will bombs be a credible threat?

And here, in this area, we don't have a China or a Japan to appeal to, to keep the real bad guys in check while we go fight wasted wars agains emotionally identified charicaturized enemies and squander our power. Much to the delight of the real bad guys.

And even if we let Iraq go to hell, pulled half our guys out and rolled over Iran, what would that do? We would have an untenable occupation position in Iraq AND an untenable occupation position in Iran.

No, our actions have screwed ourselves completely. This is the first helping in a long series of "DumbAss Desserts" the US is going to get.

We should engage Iran, with the Europeans, while we still can. We should do whatever we can to delay Irans production of a functioning Nuke- because once they have 2 or 3 we are in a world of hurt. All they need to do to shut down our economy is to demonstrate a nuke and then to claim that they have one in a container in one of our ports somewhere in america. Even if its a lie, our economy grinds to a halt for days.

So we keep the stick on the table. We can still threaten small raids, we could still smash up their infrastructure, but they know all we can do is nip at them as long as Iraq is an open question.

And every military action we DO have on the table will only act to galvanize their society AGAINST the US, and FOR the mullahs...

So they might just push the issue, gleefully, get their nuclear arsenal and Shi'a satellite state, and then THEY run the Mideast, not our Saudi fair-weather allies.

So the only way we can project credible military threat is to allign Europe and maybe (unlikely:)Russia in this process, get them vested and get them concerned about Iranian nukes falling on European or Russian cities, or blowing up their ports. If we 'dole out' a bit of humility to the Europeans and do what they are wanting us to do, at the end of the process, If Iran detonates a nuke or continues to develop one, they will have no other choice but to threaten force and occupation. A US armored fist and a European occupying force.

Of course, now that we have pissed in the face of all our geopolitically and militarilyrelevant European allies, can we even do this?

Here is where you idiots start paying for your mistakes with *MY* safety and freedons. I resent you all the more for it. Your decisions have put us in the position where we have NO WAY of reasonably stopping a nuclear middle-east without a price that I don't think we can pay, and if we do may be the downfall of the US. Enjoy, Tom.

Davin L.