Yes, Georgie is a reichwing religious nutbag, and yes, he is fully capable of being persuaded to jumpstart Armageddon. The problem, among many, is that God fulfills prophesy, not fanatical heretics. These people are nucking futs. Certifiable. Watch Rumsfailed speak, if you can bear it. Watch Perle, or Wolfoshitz. PNAC fascists and end-times crackers make a nasty snack.

Superstition has no place on this planet, let alone in discourse, let alone in capitol buildings in Tehran and Washington. "Drunk with the assertions/ they know they can't defend/ confident that they might live again. Live again, live again, would you give it all up to live again?" -Bad Religion

David, a few letters down below, has pointed out what few liberals are permitted to believe or even be conversant in, and many inner-circle right-wing echatological Christian politicians will only speak of in hushed tones among themselves: that David is correct - the Christian fundamentalist juggernaut heading toward Iran truly does believe the end is near, and they will do anything they can to bring about the Armageddon they so sincerely and insanely believe is something other than a time when, as Tom Leher put it, "We will all go together when we go." It may not be practical to bring about a literal end of the world anymore, but that's not going to stop Those People from trying, and the bigger the bang, the better they can see God in the mushroom cloud hanging over their next conquest. Screw that Twelfth Iman thing. Mahmood is a much more pragmatic guy, as are most Muslims, when the chips are down. We, on the other hand, have to deal with the real thing, sitting in the Oval Office.

I, too, grew up in what was at least partially a fundamentalist Christian family. While my father was a Christian Scientist he was also, in his younger days, an arch conservative, a bigot and a lot of other things. My mother was eminently sane, but my maternal grandmother, with whom we lived in a family collective because her name somehow wound up on the lease for the apartment, was a total, over the edge, Last Days Christian. She had a brother who was a Snake Handler. This is McCarthy era we're talking now. I have been sounding warnings about this since the late 1960's, but on the right (my fellow Republicans) there is either a condescending, smirking belief that I am overstating the case or, among those who know better, a group Hate Stare (much the same as the Southern Hate Stare perfected by Kluxers of days gone by). If you've never experienced that, just feel good about it, because if looks could main, one would leave in a basket. Not that those folks don't know how to speak hate. Freakin' Robertson unleashes some crazed pronouncement on a regular basis now, to muttered Amens, as Falwell nods and smiles, a far more savvy and dangerous man. But there are people far more dangerous deeper in the circle, pols who have annointed their point men in the war against Satan, and Satan, of course, is embodied in those infidels who embrace Islam - and, ultimately, any other belief system which does not involve confessing Jesus Christ as one's personal lord and savior, words which, for me, have become beyond meaningless - they have become onerous.

George W. Bush is, at this moment on the planet, Public Enemy No.1, and he is would lead the largest, wealthiest and best armed rogue nation on the face of the earth - right into the Valley of Death. While I do not imagine that an invasion of Iran would bring about the end of the world it would very likely break the back of the American war machine in much the same way Russia broke Hitler's army. That is not a useful outcome for our side. Any notion that our forces "cannot possibly be defeated" in the middle east are the product of deranged thinking.

But is that really what is important about a potential attack on Iran? Of course not. The most important issue is that to do so would not improve our security at home nor abroad, it would cost more precious lives, it would probably bankrupt us - in short it would serve no useful purpose and would cause untold loss and suffering - and, most significantly, it would be wrong. Do we need a better reason to restrain the messianic lunatic currently playing with the tiller of the world? I don't think so.

For a thoughtful, frightening, and plausible "future history" of the aftermath of a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, see Claude Salhani's "Four Day War" at http://www.amconmag.com/2004/2004_09_13/article.html.

There are a number of countries well-suited for guerilla warfare. South Vietnam was one of them; Iran is another. While it does have huge desert areas in which our control of the air would be dominant, it has big mountain ranges, and lots of them. Guerillas love that terrain. I hope the Pentagon has a topographical map of Iran.

Iran is also more than four times the size of California and has 68,000,000 people. As proven by the hundreds of thousands of casualties they took in the long war with Iraq, who invaded them, these people are tough and dedicated. That war was fought without a religious element to it. As Conason points out, Iran and Iraq have Shia majorities, yet Our Leader seems to believe that should we invade there will be an uprising in Iran which would overthrow the present leadership. Past and recent History finds no basis for that absurd belief Why would any sane person believe that?

Could the US military thrash the Iranian military in a straight-out engagement? Almost certainly (total air dominance will clearly help). Does that mean the US could successfully invade Iran? No. Likely result would be like Iraq (constant low-level attacks on US forces), only several orders of magnitude worse. The attackers would have shoulder-fired missles, more RPGs than they know what to do with, and ready access to huge explosive caches. In isolated areas, they'll also have artillery.