As my daughter said, "Their students are in the streets! We have to leave them alone! They're doing just fine." Iran was politically moving long before the US moved into Iraq. These kinds of organizations don't spring up overnight.

Every dark cloud has its silver lining. Our inability to deploy troops in yet another major operation will allow the Iranians time to reform their own nation themselves.

The Iraqis have held their first elections, in which they displayed great courage. But now, the Kurds and the Shi'a in Basra are interested in developing a federation, with local autonomy, rather than a central government. The Sunni have yet to participate. Some of them wouldn't, and some of them couldn't, either out of fear or because so few polling places were open in their areas due to security problems. We have yet to see whether this first election will yield an independent, unified, pluralist and free Iraq.

Iran is not Iraq; it is Persia. It may be the first real democracy in the region. If the pressure is kept up on Sharon, I have great hopes that Palestine may be the first Arab democracy. I have my doubts about Iraq. They will need to write a brilliant constitution, and they had better draft a special committee to do so, one that includes people not represented in their newly elected National Assembly.

The Domino Theory led us to Southeast Asia, where it was thoroughly discredited. You really want to go there?