I'd disagree on some points. I believe Bush does want to attack Iran. I think he'd like nothing better, and I don't think the fact the public doesn't believe him matters any more. The people to whom he wants to look good and his ego pretty well demand it.

I certainly have to agree on the reality that arms seem to be floating all over the world, and the Iranian government does not want to provoke the US. The Iraq government under Saddam didn't want to provoke the US, either, and look what it got them. You make a good case for the Iranians not supplying weapons directly. Which makes my point, that Bush is trumping up evidence to support an attack. (Saddam said he didn't have WMD, Bush said he did. Who was more truthful?)

You are correct, too, in there being a lot of countries with an interest in keeping the US bogged down, and can do so with very, very little effort. The materiel they supply is highly leveraged into problems. Not as efficient as flying our own planes into the WTC, but still quite cost-effective. In the murky underworld of arms sales it would seem to be impossible to trace anything.

Tom Brokaw's special on Iran a while back showed enormous amounts of material flowing back and forth from Iran and Iraq. Almost anything could be in some of those trucks and sacks. I suspect the other borders are as porous. For Afghanistan, the US supplied the mujahdhen with Soviet weapons purchased from the Israelis and paid the Chinese to manufacture some others. The Iranians are as duplicitious, I'm sure.

And I don't trust Bush to not want to attack. The US has been clobbered so badly in Iraq, his time is running out, and he's aware he can't salvage the situation. I think he'd take the US down completely rather than give it up as a miscalculation. Frankly, I believe it's the same mentality Hitler showed at the end of WWII. And it's the same ego-driven motives as had Hitler.

Yours was a thoughtful analysis.

Arf