Hi Alex

Iran is an interesting situation right now. They are definitely glad to see Saddam get his just desserts and of course they are going to be opportunistic in exploiting the Shiia majority. But they also need a stable Iraq, that is why the Shiia are for the most part behaving. What people outside the Islamic world generally do not understand is that the Shiite mullahs see the Wahhabis in Riyadh as much more evil than The Great Satan and they don't want to drive the Sunii into the arms of the Saudis.

What is very interesting is the parallel between Iran right now and Russia in the last days of the Soviet Union. The system has failed, the leaders have no credibility and everyone knows it. The regime will make mischief as they can but their domestic dissent is growing and I believe the whole place is about to implode. I would be very surprised to see the theocracy still in place by the end of Bush's second term <<s>>

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>Accurate analysis. And knowing you I know you know some of the facts.
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>One thing I wonder is if Iran has properly thanked the for doing their dirty work. Iran's two biggest enemies and competitors for regional hegemony and strengh were Iraq and the Taliban. In a very short time both threats dissapeared. I am sure the Iranian clerics are secretly very happy though they may not show it publicly.



>>Well, truth be told, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab created the Islamists. Like all fanatics, their complaint is not so much with the infidel as with the apostate. Strangely, we became their target when we got involved with a very secular struggle - the first Gulf War - and stationed troops in the land of the Hijaz.
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>>I don't think the idea of taking care of the threat in Iraq was due to a misconception about Saddam's secularism. Saddam was Stalin. That was his model. But islamo-fascism (to borrow from Daniel Pipes) cannot be addressed until the lynchpin country is stable. When Iraq is secure, Syria (another secular nation) can be dealt with and we have 'leverage' with the Saudis. Hezbollah will crumble when the Mullahs are hanging from lampposts in Tehran. There are lots of Iranians making nooses as we speak.
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>>We had no illusions about the French going in. Chirac is a known quantity. He sold Saddam the reactor the Israeli's destroyed over 20 years ago. Their stand against the invasion of Iraq was never a principled one and no one who knew anything about it believed it was.
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>>The Islamists will be dealt with but from a strategic point of view there are many fronts on which it has to be approached. The children chanting "no WMDs" never understood what this was all about and never will. Fortunately the grownups do. Britain went with us because MI6 is still run by grownups and we get a lot of cooperation from the French DGSE and DRM because they protect France's real interests while the politicians sell their national security down the river. (there are parallels to 1939 that are both interesting and disturbing)
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>>About WMDs. If a child finds the WMDs he holds a press conference and says "Oh look, oh look, mommy!" When the grownup finds them he bugs them, modifies them, and pops a keyhole satellite over them - and takes the political hit. Think about it.
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>>Regarding Syria - they got the message. We took Iraq about as easily as Iraq took Kuwait - and in a war - Iraq would have kicked Syria's butt.
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>>Libya *definitely* got the message.