The land of the 'evildoers.'

I'm pretty sure that short-term memory and/or amnesia has erased the fact that Iran was moving toward democratization and reform in 2000 and 2001 and even for a while after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 and actually offered assistance against the Taliban and Al Qaeda (Iranians are Shia and Persian, not Sunni and Arab); nonetheless, since Iran has been the obsession of the neocons (see: PNAC/Shah of Iran/CIA/British Petroleum/MI6, ad nausea) for the last 50 years or more, it was no matter.

Even with hours and hours of footage of average Iranian citizens offering their heartfelt condolences, and despite back channel offers of help, they were to be lumped in with the 9/11 crazy nut bag fundamentalist nihilists anyway. Which has slowly evolved into one of the greatest strategic fuck ups in human history, perhaps only short of Germany's Eastern Front or Napoleon and the same folly (funny, how warmonger's think they can do the same thing, over and over again, and expect a different result.)

Despite well meaning advice from allies with experience in such matters as terrorism and such, the stupid, took hold. With a vengeance.

George Bush, under advisement of obtuse crazy idiots (an immutable fact), named Iran as the part of an "Axis of Evil," which, of course, didn't make any logical sense whatsoever; therefore, the reformers (i.e., liberals) in Tehran were beaten back by the CONSERVATIVE Mullah's and other reprobates of the Iranian hierarchy.

The fact that 9/11 was organized and perpetrated by a wealthy CIA-backed Mujaheddin-financier and carried out by 15 Saudi Arabian citizens (e.g., NO IRANIANS OR IRAQIS) was of course somewhat downplayed (extreme sarcasm). The whole time (and for conspiracy theorists) it was always about Iran, even back as far as 1950, let alone the first "Persian Gulf War," waged by Bush's father.

Well, ironically enough, the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward sanity (again) in both countries.

Obama is more of a threat to those mullahs than Bush ever was. If you're an intransigent theocon Iranian leader:

All of a sudden, you’re deprived of a method of demagoguery that’s aided your regime for a generation. And if you refuse to negotiate, you’ve just undermined everything you told the international community you wanted, and now appear unreasonable, erratic, and unattractive to foreign capitols. Amazing how the prospects for peace are more destabilizing to the Iranian establishment than any inevitably-counterproductive-and-destructive bombing campaign or war of internal subterfuge.

That's an analysis born out by Erdbrink's past work too. Back in 2004, he co-wrote a Time piece which pointed out that "dominant hard-line clerics are worried that friendly American behavior might aid reformers, who are less anti-Western than the conservatives."

There's a presidential election in Iran next year and a moderate now heads the committee which would choose the replacement for the ailing Ayatollah. In other words, it's not about nukes or about international opinion - its about the shakier thrones Iran's hardline government now find themselves sitting upon; with the best weapon in their arsenal, Bush's neocon ways, consigned to history.