The issue here is with the radical islamists that “govern” Iran and are depriving the Iranian people their freedom of expression and rights as human beings to disagree with their leadership. (Just as many in the U.S. disagree with G.W. Bush openly every day). It’s the radical Islamists that are hell bent on destroying Americans who are the target of the editorial above not the average Iranian citizen. (Unless of course those Iranian citizens are in fact radical terrorists hell bent on the death of innocent Americans.) In fact the article makes it very clear, as well as the editorial comments, that the majority of the Iranian people want the same liberties as any other peoples on this planet.

I would rather have a strong government run under someone who thought like Ronald Regan – my opinion – (you do recall the mess Jimmy Carter made of things when Americans were held for months in Tehran by Islamic Fundamentalists in the 70s). Those hostages were released because Tehran, (and the Ayatollahs) knew with CERTAINTY that unless they did so, their country might become a wasteland and their deserts turned into glass. They knew Ronald Regan was not going to “play” like Jimmy Carter did.

Obama seems like another Jimmy Carter to me. (Again my opinon). I would take a strong leader that projects a certain amount of fear and uncertainty than someone who seems like he can be manipulated while devious intentions unfold behind the scenes. I would suspect if I lived in Tel Aviv, I would be especially concerned with any U.S. President that could appear to be “weak” by the radical Islamo-facist deviates.

What about your very own John McCain’s tasteless, senseless joke regarding cigarettes as a “way to kill them”. Who is this “them” he speaks of? Maybe in Iran, paradoxically only soldiers, police officers, and government officials buy infidel commodities, and are thus the only victims of the long-term hazards of smoking. Or could it be, rather, the cumulative identity of Iran that McCain so casually disparages? Get off your high horse, your party does more to ferment hatred and fear of the Persian constituency than it wishes them well.

Need I remind you that it was the deposition of Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953, a move supported and funded by the British and American governments, via Operation Ajax, for the benefit of AIOC (now known as BP), that created the context for the Islamic Revolution in the first place?! We have long since proven to Iran what our government’s interests in it are, and any overt action geared toward political change there would be viewed with the utmost scrutiny and end just as disastrously.

As a “liberal secular humanist” that you people seem to hate so much, I despise Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Republic he stands for, and its methodologies. Part of being liberal is having a distaste for such horrendous politics. I fully support the leftist student demonstrations taking place against that oppressive regime. However, taking our soldiers and our weapons and obliterating the infrastructure of Iran will do nothing less than turn it into the next Iraq, and for what?

In the words of Batedi himself, the government is religiously extreme, but the people are not. Yet it is those very same people who would suffer the most from your party’s willingness to ba ba ba ba bomb, bomb bomb Iran.

You are so quick to devalue diplomacy, editing out the years of no progress and cowboy rhetoric with respect to the Bush administration and North Korea, and the recent inverse; this is true of Iran as well. My suggestion to you would be to read the works of Thomas P.M. Barnett, or see one of his recent talks. The Islamic Republic is objectively something of a soft target, and can be dealt with similarly. The goal here isn’t to “appease” the Islamic Republic, it is to slowly but surely pave the way for that state to allow people like Batedi to change it for the better from the inside, and you don’t do that by threatening to outright destroy the state. That rhetoric just makes a state fearful, oppressive, and militarised. Just like they are. Just like the USSR was under Stalin. Just like America was in the heyday of McCarthyism.

Consider this another Cold War, and deal with them as if it were one. That is what is best for the Iranian people, in the greater good sort of way. Getting all kneejerk reactionary to a torture story and deciding it’s okay to immediately bomb their infrastructure and replace their regime at great cost to the people you postured over… not so much.