Steve,

Your area is oil, so perhaps you could answer a question for me. How much of the concern about Iranian enrichment from GCC states is due to concerns about the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons, and how much is due to concerns about the economic ramifications for OPEC of Iran replacing much of its domestic oil consumption with nuclear power, thus liberating more of Iran's oil product for export. I read recently that the GCC states are also planning to develop nuclear power for these reasons.

My hypothesis is that a lot of these Arab worries about Iran have to do the possibility of an emerging Iran-Iraq OPEC bloc, which would then be in a position to seize control of OPEC policy and decision-making.

Are you implying that Iran would be willing to use nuclear weapons against the US if they had them in their possession?

This is an example of a a basic delusion that is widespread in the US: American foreign and war making policy is for the benefit of the rest of the world. We are the friendly cop on the beat.

The rest of the world has a different take: America is the single greatest threat to world peace and that its policies are being pursued in the interests of the US and Israel without regard for other's interests.

Okay, would you care to remind me how many countries the "religious psycho with a gun" has invaded?

Don't get me wrong, Iran is a rival with hegemonic aspirations (greatly advanced by Bush's gun slinging) in a region that is of vital strategic interest to the US, but lets drop the infantile habit of building foreign policy upon cartoonish exaggeration and the need to defend ourselves against the Bogeyman.

Iran does pose a threat to the American interests. Ignoring that threat would be naive, however, Tehran has pursued its regional aspirations with far more restraint than either the United States or Israel for the past thirty years. Iran has advanced it's cause through "covert" support of proxies like Hezbollah and met with it's greatest successes by taking advantage of American and Israeli blunders and bluster.

The best course to take with Iran is to consider the possibility that the best solution to a problems isn't always to kill something, ratchet down the rhetoric, try to stabilize the region by extricating ourselves from the Iraqi quagmire and generally regroup. In short, let's stop peeing ourselves every time a third rate power demonstrates the temerity f pursuing their own interests rather than the Republican party's interests, hmm?

By that same logic, German rearmament in the 30s wasn't a threat, because blitzkrieg had never been tried before.

If you go back and re-read Mr. Hartung's post, you will see that he never said that Iranian ambitions weren't a threat, merely that they have been grossly exaggerated. Sadly, when it comes to foreign policy, American tend to lurch from disengagement to hysteria - just about the only constant is ignorance.

Iranian aspirations do pose a threat to American interests in the Middle East, but there are degrees of threat. Germany in the 1930's was a modern, wealthy industrial powerhouse forced into a European order that simultaneously offended German pride and ignored German potential to violently restructure that order in its favor.

Iran is a militarily impotent, politically divided power with an unstable, poorly developed economy which depends primarily upon selling petroleum to its enemy.

Fevered brows aside, Iran is no Germany!

The ability to differentiate between a regional rival and an existential threat, however, eludes the rabid right, which so reliably mistakes moderation for appeasement, prudence for cowardice and hysteria for courage.

And imagine if Iran had invaded as many of its neighbors as Isarel has? How come we never hear about Isarel's invasion of Egypt in 1956? Talk about being a threat to your neighbors.