I'm not an expert on the Middle East or Islam, so I have to rely on experts when it comes to the common Shia connection. But my sense is that an unprovoked attack on Iran would go down much worse in the Middle East than the unprovoked attack on Iraq, since the Iranian government is viewed as legitimate, which it is of course.

You don't give reasons why you're not buying. The only reason you can have that I can think of is that they can't be that crazy. But we have plenty of evidence that they are that crazy. And there are plenty of examples in history of countries getting themselves into wars that everyone should have seen were crazy.

Clearly, Bush is making very threatening moves toward Iran. Either it's a bluff, or it's for real. As someone observed on the blogosphere, bluffing is not Bush's style. The Bushies are behaving now toward Iran exactly how they behaved toward Iraq in the run-up to the invasion.

Before Bush's speech, fears that the US would attack Iran could be fairly easily characterized as paranoid. But now two establishment, very high-profile correspondents are taking them seriously (the two people who work for NBC I quoted). That means we should, too.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns