Iran has now come out and repeated India’s position on Afghanistan vis a vis the good Taliban.  See link.  Iran’s motivations are pretty clear since there never has been any love lost between Iran and the Taliban, the former considering the Taliban as backward fanatics and the latter considering the Iranians as schismatic heretics.  Given Washington’s inclination to disregard anything Iran says, this will not prevent the Karzai government from seeking a rapprochement with elements of the Taliban.  But any increase in Taliban influence in Kabul raises the chance of Iranian meddling and counter-meddling from Pakistan.  The vicious cycle continues.

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The LA Times has an article about the emerging showdown between the next round of the confrontation between the Iranian regime and the opposition on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11), the 31st anniversary of the Iranian revolution.  See link.  In recent days the regime has tried to decapitate the opposition with executions, arrests and attempts to suggest that opposition Presidential candidates Mousavi and Karroubi had conceded defeat.  But as previously noted the strength (and weakness) of the Iranian protests is the absence of a leader whose removal will demoralize the protesters.  While the regime has not hesitated to use batons and occasionally bullets to disperse the crowds, it has not yet brought (or has been unable to bring) tanks on the streets to decisively crush the opposition like the Syrians did at Hama and the Chinese did at Tiananmen.  Till then the world can draw inspiration from the dogged protesters in the street and hope that the men with the guns will have a change of heart.

Meanwhile neocons are still equally dogged in their determination to bomb Iran, however pointless and self-defeating the attack will be.  See link to the latest by Daniel Pipes. Also see link.  One of the lines of attack seems to be to keep referring to the Iranian regime as “apocalyptic” even though since its inception the Iranian regime has been ruthlessly pragmatic in its primary goal – survival.  A regime allegedly rooted in Islam has even given itself the right to suspend Sharia law in the interests of the state (a marked difference from the Saudis and the Taliban).  Even North Korea, whose actions are significantly more irrational and unpredictable, has demonstrated that nuclear weapons are primarily being used as a deterrent.  There seems little evidence (other than verbal broadsides) that the Iranian regime with its lust for power and keen eye for survival would not do the same.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the latest Juan Cole column about the scaremongering and hyperbole that American policy makers (Hillary Clinton) and neo-con pundits keep coming up with to inflate the military threat from militarily weak third world countries.  When Barack Obama pointed out this fact in the 2008 eight presidential campaign, that Iran is hardly the existential threat that the Soviet Union was he was pilloried for it.  Here is one blogger who is glad that the occupant of the White House has the ability to keep things in perspective.

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Here is an amusing story from Iran.  In a seeming reaction to the “Green Revolution” that brought thousands of protesters into the streets this summer, Iran’s regime seems to have reacted by taking the green band in Iran’s flag and turning it to blue.  See here and here.  Before rigging the elections this summer, the regime had warned the opposition not to attempt a “color” revolution as seen in other parts of the world (Orange in the Ukaraine, Rose in Georgia, etc.).  This is a move steeped in multiple ironies.  Green is the representative color for Islam and is now possibly being disowned by a putative Islamic regime.  Replacing green with blue turns would result in the Iranian flag sharing the red, white and blue combination of the two “Great Satans” of the regime – the United States and the United Kingdom.  For additional humor inherent in this situation, see the cartoon below that ran during the summer and was reposted on Andrew Sullivan’s site today.  See link.

'Khamenei Tears Green Stripe (Associated with Mousavi) Off Iranian Flag' Cartoonist: Jihad 'Awartani, Source: Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), June 26, 2009.

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In the week long hiatus taken in my blogging activities, the expected protests in Iran have taken place.  The obtuse decision to treat all mourners at Ayatollah Montazeri’s funeral as protesters and shedding blood on Ashura, the Iranian regime is providing further proof of its ideological bankruptcy.  However, as has been noted many times in this blog the tipping point will not come until a sizable portion of the security forces refuses to shed further blood of their countrymen.

In the meantime the regime tries to brutally send a message by targeting relatives of some of the leaders of the protest – like killing the nephew of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi or arresting the non-political sister of Shirin Ebadi.  However, neither of them or even the brave Mehdi Karroubi appears to be the driving force behind the protests.

Iran’s youth (70% of the population is under 30) is making its displeasure felt.  Unlike 1979 there is no charismatic figure like Ayatollah Khomieni waiting in the wings.  While this could make it harder to topple the regime, it also makes it harder for the regime to scuttle the protests by eliminating a select leadership.

In some ways the Rubicon was thoroughly crossed this week.  The Supreme Leader can no longer count on the presumed sanctity of his office to protect him.  The crowds in the street are now baying for his blood.  With some people talking of an Iranian intifada, even the crushing of the current round of protests will only trigger more ferment down the road. The regime can only hope for some external action (of the sort that Messers Netenyahu and the neo-cons would love to provide) that will save their regime.  Here’s hoping they do not get an excuse to force the protesters to rally around a regime they despise.

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As expected the death of Ayatollah Montazeri has brought the crowds back on Iranian streets and the regime predictably tried to tarnish his memory.  Abbas Milani at TNR has a great profile of the man would have been Supreme Leader but for the fact he had a conscience.  The trauma caused to the United States by the embassy takeover and the international loss of face has often blinded Americans to the fact that the Islamic revolution toppled a tyrant (albeit one who ultimately flinched at the thought of firing at the crowds in a manner that did not faze Hafez Assad in Syria or the Chinese regime in the next decade) and that the new regime had broad public backing at inception.

However, the founders of the Islamic Republic of Iran ultimately fell prey to the same moral vacuum that stained past revolutions and led to the Reign of Terror, the Great Purges, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.  Like the French, Russian and Chinese Revolutions before it, the Iranian regime replaced a repressive regime that was far more brutal and had fewer qualms in killing its own citizens.  Montazeri deserves credit for having the moral authority to stand up for to Ayatollah Khomeini and protest the wanton massacre of the regime’s opponents.  For this he suffered house arrest and political exile but earned the respect of his countrymen. It is hardly surprising that the morally and ideologically bankrupt regime is desperately trying to tarnish his name and disrupt his funeral services.  However, by turning him into a martyr they are generating a backlash against the Supreme Leader.

Just how much force the regime is willing to use and whether the mobs will peter out will be evident in the coming days.

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Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri has died.  One of the intellectual creators of the Islamic revolution and originally the designated successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, he was exiled from political power in 1989 for daring to question the abysmal human rights record of the regime and warning that it was using Islam to create a dictatorship.  A concerned regime placed him under house arrest in 1997 only releasing him a few years later when he fell ill to avoid the backlash that his death under arrest would cause.  Many Iranians considered him to be the legitimate “Supreme Leader,” particularly since he outranked the current Supreme Leader Khamenei in the religious hierarchy.  Montazeri came to the forefront this summer when he condemned the blatant rigging of the Presidential election.  His death and his funeral will likely become another occasion for the tensions simmering in Iran to reappear on the street.  More lies turmoil ahead for Iran.  A brave man who dared stand up to the repression of the Shah and the Ayatollahs and who dared question the legitimacy of the Supreme Leader, Montazeri will be missed.

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After an unexpected hiatus from blogging activities, kick starting the first post of the week with some thoughts on events that would have merited longer posts at the time.

• I liked the general tenor of Barack Obama’s speech but was amused to see some of the blinders come off on the left and the right as a result.  Liberals unhappy about the decision on Afghanistan saw the president expound a doctrine of just war which in some ways could have been delivered by George W. Bush. Conservatives who had convinced themselves that Obama was a weak anti-war liberal seem to have heard for the first time that the President does not rule out war (they seem to have forgotten his comment in the campaign that he was only against “stupid wars” (though he left may argue that the Afghan escalation IS a stupid war).  Time will tell whether the “Obama Doctrine” fares better than the “Bush Doctrine.”  With its understanding of the limitations of American power, it does have a greater chance of success.
• The Indian government dropped a bombshell with the creation of a new state.  Will discuss the virtues and pitfalls of smaller states in the Indian constitutional context later this week, but words cannot describe how badly the decision making process was bungled.  First the government gave in to emotional blackmail of a hunger strike, then nobody seems to have discussed the decision with the local government and laid the groundwork, and the critical question of who gets Hyderabad still remains unanswered.  The abrupt decision making process has also suddenly brought to the forefront demands for at least 9 new states.  Before the virtues of these demands are assessed, first the Indian government deserves brickbats for sheer incompetence.
• The Iranian regime returns Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel peace prize medal.  Previous blog here.
• One of the two Chicago men arrested for planning a terrorist attack in Denmark seems to be singing about his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.  Not surprisingly, India wants him extradited.

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More unrest on Iran’s streets and campuses.  See here, here, and here.  As the protests have dragged on they have become more brazen in insulting the Supreme Leader Khamenei.  The desperate regime has started targeting the protesters globally, arresting mothers mourning their children killed in the protests, and lately assaulting presidential candidate Mousavi and his wife.  And even in the face of the batons of the Basij and the guns of the revolutionary guard the brave students of Iran continue to march and protest.  The hope for Iran is that as the protests continue and the support base of the regime weakens the men with guns start to waver, and messers Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and their bomb first ask questions later enablers in the United States do not do something stupid to prop up an intellectually bankrupt regime.

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• Christopher Hitchens complains about how the saga of the party crashers overshadowed the visit of Manmohan Singh to the United States and vents about the state of media coverage.  This is hardly a new phenomenon, though it seems to have got worse in the last 20 years.  From my viewpoint the O. J. Simpson circus, I mean trial, was the start of this nonsense.  It showed when the media cut away from Clinton’s state of the union address to announce the civil verdict against OJ.
• The Economist’s Banyan on how North Korea in the finest traditions of bankrupt regimes “revalued” its currency and robbed its citizens.
• More Afghan perceptions on Obama’s speech.
• A depressing read on how the Taliban is wrecking the rich Buddhist heritage of the region and threatening museums in Pakistan.
• The Economist cites a Stephen Walt column on how German unifier Otto von Bismarck’s realism may be a guide on a realistic foreign policy to ease tensions in the world and tackle Iran.  It is an interesting theory, but historical analogies don’t always fit.  Bismarck’s concert of powers was ultimately doomed because Russia and Austria-Hungary’s ambitions (along with their proxies Serbia and Bulgaria) clashed in the Balkans and an over-powerful Germany clashed with the traditional British agenda since the Spanish Armada of preventing any one power from dominating the European continent.  These tensions were already evident by the time of Bismarck’s unceremonious dismissal.
• How far will Dubai’s woes rein in Sheikh Makhtoum’s ambitious agenda?  It gives conservative Abu Dhabi a lot more leverage.

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Reacting to the recent IAEA censure, the Iranian regime has reacted with a show of petulance announcing 10 new uranium enrichment plants for uranium it does not have.  The IAEA vote was significant in that Iran got no support from countries it could rely on in the past including Russia, China, India and South Africa.  Even though Brazil has resisted joining the international chorus, more reactions like the one this Sunday could fritter away any goodwill Iran possesses for its legal position that even the Non Proliferation Treaty allows Iran to enrich uranium for civilian use.  However, the NPT requires transparency in Iranian actions which has not been forthcoming.  The Iranian reaction may also point to continuing tensions within the regime on how to proceed without losing face.  The question is whether this back and forth forces Russia and China to join in a meaningful sanctions regime (which is useless without them) and how soon, if ever, this happens.

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Barack Obama’s recent trip to China has received much criticism for its failure to achieve much of substance, giving a short-shrift to human rights issues and even raising a minor storm in India from an otherwise innocuous press release.  However, the trip may not have been entirely wasted.  Richard Wolfe notes that lost in the press coverage (and he charitably does not mention the American media’s obsession with Sarah Palin’s new ghost-written book) were agreements reached regarding emissions targets.  This along with talks held with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his state visit last week (which also helped defuse the brouhaha over the joint statement with China) could help break the deadlock at the upcoming Copenhagen talks.

The Chinese visit may have also contributed to the China joining the recent censure of Iran by the IAEA.  The deliverables may not be as groundbreaking as previous presidential visits abroad but address two upcoming issues on the President’s foreign policy slate.  Success in Copenhagen could reaffirm the goodwill that exists for the administration on the ground in Europe.  Bringing India and China into any global agreement to cut emissions will blunt one of the major criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol.  Likewise any Chinese help on Iran is to be welcomed.  These are small steps at present, but they could lead to greater rewards down the road.

The latest gambit by the Iranian regime in its attempt to squash dissent.   In what appears to be a first, they have now seized the Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to Shirin Ebadi.  The official justification appears to be back taxes owed for the $1.3 million award, which Ebadi claims is no subject to tax.  The regime has now frozen her bank account and may try to seize her home.

Inflicting financial pain is hardly a new tactic for repressive regimes.  However, seizing the medal smacks of pettiness that will hold up the Iranian regime to deserved ridicule.

• George Gavrilis suggests a closer look at the resolution of the Tajik civil war for the type of state system that may eventually emerge in Afghanistan.  While it is an interesting thought, Tajikistan did not have the same ethnic and sectarian tensions Afghanistan did and nor was it a proxy playing grounds for its neighbors.
• Another look at the relative unknowns chosen as Europe’s President and Foreign Minister.
• How the fears of a swine flu epidemic may have been cynically used as a gambit in Ukraine’s presidential election.
• How Hezbollah has used a loophole in Shiite marriage law to satisfy the libido of its foot soldiers.
• Time for the gathering of the Muslim faithful in Mecca for another Hajj, this event being overshadowed by swine flu fears and the political drama from Iran.

The New York Times reviews the recent air strikes conducted by the Saudi Air Force in Yemen and the risk of a proxy fight with Iran.  The article also has a brief but good overview of the complex religious schisms within Islam at play in Yemen.  It has been close to 50 years since the Saudis had to deal with a proxy fight on their southwestern flank.  In the 1960s the Saudis were sucked into a civil war in Yemen after Nasser inspired rebels toppled the Yemeni monarchy.  Unlike Nasser, the Iranians will not be able to send ground troops into Yemen.  For them it will be a proxy fight akin to their arming of Hezbollah – relatively low cost but high rewards from the likely Yemeni and Saudi overreaction.

A 2,500 year old mystery based on a Herodotus story sometimes dismissed as a fable may have been solved.  The Persian Emperor Cambyses II has generally not received good press from historians.  Some of it comes from the difficulty of being the successor of Cyrus the Great, a man who turned a nation of goatherders subject to the Median Empire into what was the largest empire the world had ever seen.  Media, Babylon and Lydia with the famed wealth of Croesus fell before Cyrus.  Cambyses finished the job by conquering the last remaining empire of antiquity, Egypt.

This is when things started to go south and the legend of the lost army begins.  After his initial victory Cambyses failed to subdue Kush in the south and had to give up his plan to attack Carthage because his Phoenician subjects refused to fight their ethnic kin.  The frustrated emperor decided to vent his rage at the Oracle of Amun located in the Siwa Oasis which refused to recognize him as Pharaoh of Egypt.  According to Herodotus the army of 50,000 disappeared in a sandstorm.  An army that size generally leaves behind some traces.  But for 2,500 years nothing was found.  If true, this solves one of the two major location mysteries of Ancient Egypt (the other is the location of the tomb of Alexander the Great which disappears from the historical record in the early third century AD).

To sum up on poor Cambyses, he came to a sticky end.  Forced to leave Egypt to deal with the revolt of his brother Bardiya, he died suddenly.  His eventual successor Darius I would say it was suicide.  Darius, a cousin, who usurped the throne from Bardiya and ruled successfully for 36 years lavished a lot of effort in blackening the reputations of the sons of Cyrus.  Cambyses comes down as a bloodthirsty and moody tyrant who initiated a tradition of royal incest in violation of Persian norms.  Bardiya suffers a worse fate.  The man deposed by Darius was dismissed as an impostor, a Magi priest named Gaumata, who killed the real son of Cyrus.   All of this justified the bloody path of Darius to the throne, sealed by his marriage to the daughters of Cyrus.  As is often the case, the winner got to write history.  In this case the victor inscribed his version in stone.

David Ignatius on the Iranian regime’s need to keep America as the Great Satan to survive.  This is also why Barack Obama who is not as easily caricatured and demonized is an existential risk to the regime.  It also reflects the fundamental bankruptcy of the Iranian regime that at present can muster broader support by rallying people around the flag against a real or mythical enemy (Think Wag the Dog or Canadian Bacon).  Another reason why military strikes would be just the medicine the mullahs ordered.

Iran is hardly unique in this.  Ever since the creation of Bangladesh, the strongest glue holding Pakistan together (and used by its army to justify its expenditures) is reflexive anti-India sentiment.  In the United States the military-industrial complex has desperately searched for a new conventional threat to justify America’s obscene military spending, from talking up the Chinese military threat in the mid 1990s, to exaggerating the threat posed by the ramshackle militaries of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and now Iran.  Sadly the tactic works all too often.

Kevin Drum on the practical limitations the United States has on sanctioning Iran.  With Iran repeatedly backtracking on the recent nuclear deal, recent opinion pieces have touted harsh sanctions to change the regime’s behavior.   The problem with sanctions in recent years from Burma to Zimbabwe has been their limited utility in changing behavior.  But, Iran is more tied into the world, economically and culturally, than either of those two rogue states.   A smart sanction regime could have some effect.  But that is feasible only if Russia and China go along with them.  At present that does not seem likely.

Time posts about the looming confrontation in Iran on the anniversary of the siege of the US embassy.  Even though the Iranian dictatorship will not face imminent collapse until the men with guns switch sides, it is impressive to see the Iranian youth stand up in defiance.  Particularly one like Mahmoud Vahidnia who rebuked the supreme leader to his face.  Here’s hoping the bloodshed is kept to a minimum.

Yglesias links a post about a surprised neo-con who discovers that the Iranian reformers are patriots not American puppets in the making.  For all the blather directed at President Obama’s alleged naiveté, it is still surprising (even after the debacle in Iraq where they thought that they would magically convert Iraq into a pro-Israel country full of American military bases that spurned OPEC to give the United States cheap oil) that they cannot grasp that the interests and desires of other countries do not neatly align with American wishes.

The New York Times has a profile on Mehdi Karroubi, one of the 4 presidential candidates in the rigged elections this summer.  Since I have been following the news coverage he has also been the most vocal critic of the torture and repression that followed the quasi coup.  While a lot of hopes were placed in former President Hashemi Rafsanjani’s behind the scenes machinations, the Green Revolution confirms a depressing truth on the underpinnings of power originally articulated in the deathbed advice of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus to his sons.  ”Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men.”

When the soldiers stay neutral or switch sides tyrants like Marcos, Ceausescu and Milosevic fall.  When the regime buys their loyalty the result is what was displayed at Tiananmen, on the streets of Rangoon and in the student dorms of Iran’s universities this summer.

Just how long the iron fist can control Iran’s youth remains to be seen.  China purchased political stability with an economic boon.  Burma’s junta got it though sheer repression and a willful disregard for the condition of its people.  Iran lies somewhere in the middle.  Its economy is a mess and over dependent on its oil industry.  But it is far too culturally integrated with the world to lapse into a North Korea or Burma like isolation.  Time is not on the regime’s side.

As noted before the neo-cons have been urging military action against Iran.  The fact that a ground invasion is impractical without a neighboring country willing to allow the United States to use it as a staging area, the exhausted United States army has no troops for an invasion and subsequent occupation, allowing Israel to bomb the Iranian nuclear sites is unlikely to have much practical effect and any bombing campaign would force the Iranian public that hates the regime to rally around the flag are mere technicalities to be dismissed in their fantasy world.

Now the man George W. Bush insisted on appointing as ambassador to the United Nations has revealed that there is no limit to his bombing fetish.  Earlier this week Bolton raised the possibility that the only solution may be for Israel to preemptively nuke Iran.

By all accounts Iran is still some distance from actually getting the Bomb.  Even if it gets the ability it is unclear whether Iran wants the expense of keeping an active arsenal or getting a quick trigger ability like Japan.  Even if Iran did get the Bomb it is not a given that a nuclear strike on Israel will follow.  Regardless of the focus on the theocratic aspects of the regime and the rewards in the afterlife, the Iranian regime has displayed time and again that its primary motive is survival.  Israel’s second strike ability and Washington’s nuclear shield guarantees the annihilation of Iran should it strike with nuclear weapons.

Even Saddam Hussein in 1991 held back from using chemical weapons in his Scud strikes against Israel, knowing that the result would be annihilation.  An Israeli nuclear strike against a nation without nuclear weapons would be sheer insanity.  I agree with Daniel Luban, that this rhetorical escalation is intended to shift the contours of the debate further to the right.  But the lack of rational boundaries for Bolton’s warmongering raises the question why exactly George W. Bush thought this man could be a diplomat.

The regime change debacle in Iraq has not chastened the neo-cons. First they foolishly called for Obama to grant Messers. Khamenei, Ahmedinejad and the ruling clique in Iran a gift by intervening in the protests this summer. Now the public disclosure of the new secret reactor near Qom is bringing the predictable calls for regime change from Republican Senators to armchair hawks.

Just how this miracle is to be achieved is not clear. Then there is the amnesia of America’s regime change history in Iran, notably the toppling of Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953 which the Iranians have not forgotten. While the right-wing gets caught up in the rhetoric of the President being “the leader of the free world” there is a general lack of appreciation that most of the free world is generally looking for America to lead by inspirational example rather than diktat.

The naiveté about the willingness of proud historical cultures to accept American sponsored puppets led to the ill advised attempt to install (convicted bank fraudster) Ahmad Chalabi in Iraq. Even when he was replaced by the more acceptable Ayad Allawi, neo-cons seem to have forgotten that he was swept out of office the moment a free election was held.

The prescription of sanctions toppling governments is also flawed. South Africa is the only country in recent memory where they worked, and they worked because the apartheid regime needed the white minority to stand solidly behind it. In other countries like North Korea, Zimbabwe and Burma the ruling clique has continued to feather its nest, passed on the suffering to the population and blamed foreigners for the economic mess. There is also the question of whether China which will do business with any autocrat who turns on the oil spigot will comply with any sanctions regime.

Iran is in the middle of revolutionary ferment that threatens the regime. However, as Joe Klein notes the reason there is such a broad coalition in place is because they speak of reforming the regime rather than eviscerating the structure established in the revolution. With a mass of people stewing in discontent and the ideological underpinnings of the regime revealed to be a sham Iran does not need the intervention prescribed by the neo-cons.  Clumsy American meddling may give the beleaguered Supreme Leader the means he needs to get the disaffected theocracy to rally around the flag. The bayonets of the revolutionary guard and the batons of the Basij hold the regime in place for now. As Serbia’s Milosevic discovered, they find it hard to keep the pot from boiling over indefinitely.

One of the fascinating (and disturbing) after effects of 9/11 has been the willingness in the West to present Islam as a faith inherently violent and antithetical to peaceful co-existence with other religions. This ignores the bloody history and bouts of intolerance of the other Abrahamic faiths. The deeper irony is that the ones preaching the evils of Islam in the West, particularly in America, are often the ones who fail to recognize or appreciate why America and Europe are not theocracies in the Iranian mold. Early American colonies were founded for the religious freedom of only its founders. The Puritans did not extend the same courtesy to others.

It wasn’t until the Enlightenment and the separation of church and state (something hated by Christian fundamentalists today) that many of the freedoms we take for granted in the West occurred.

The history of any religion is amazingly consistent in its patterns – whether there is an Episcopal hierarchy like the Catholic Church or whether it does not have a formal organization or structure like Hinduism. The priestly class tries to stick itself at the top of the hierarchy, the secular class pushes back. Translating the holy books into the language of the common man causes concerns – from legitimate ones regarding the quality of the translation to the more cynical power grab deeming it blasphemy. Even if Rulers do not want priests dictating to them they are more than willing to use it as a matter of state policy.

It wasn’t until the Enlightenment that states of Western Europe and America would stop seeing to “make windows into men’s hearts and secret thoughts.”   The reduction of religion’s role in political life (something the right wing is furiously trying to overturn) has been a big part of why Christianity and Judaism seem more tolerant today. It is also unfortunate that the Hindutva brigade in India instead of embracing the ecumenical tradition of its faith is intent of emulating the worst bigotry of the monotheistic faiths they despise.

In addition to the secularism encouraged by the Enlightenment there is the social revolution in the West in the aftermath of World War II when women entered the professional workforce in droves (in spite of the attempt turn the clock back in the 50s) followed by the sexual revolution of the 60s. That social transformation caused immense cultural dislocation in the West. It is hardly surprising that the Islamic world which was not subject to the same social transformation time table and hade more traditionalist societies to begin with has not kept up.

Ironically it is the Islamic Republic of Iran that may ultimately convince the Islamic world of the benefits of separating church and state. It is the living example of the axiom that combining religion and politics tarnishes both. Even though the Green Revolution this summer was crushed by what was essentially a coup d’état it is unclear whether the regime is sustainable. By all accounts the power hungry mullahs are widely despised by a populace mostly born after the fall of the Shah. The Chinese regime survived by quietly morphing into fascists and providing double digit growth in exchange for freedom. The Iranian economy teeters on the brink of collapse.

Unlike the Baathist regime in Syria and previously in Iraq the mullahcracy does not appear to have a similar iron grip and has not yet displayed a willingness to mete out a Hama or a Halabja.

If the regime does fall, a relatively secularized Iran will be a far more appealing and enduring symbol of secularism in the Middle East than the to-down variety imposed by Ataturk in Turkey. For every Ataturk, there are many King Amanullahs.

While the Obama administration has had its missteps, it is refreshing to see leadership in Washington that understands that it should not step in when its enemy is doing a good job hanging itself. Given the debacle of regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, the shortage of troops and the absence of any staging sites to launch an invasion, it hard to understand what the bomb Iran crowd expects its belligerence and desire for machismo will achieve.