This article is the best articulation of what I've been feeling about the mess in the Middle East. I do not agree with the solution, but I think it draws an interesting parallel between Nasser and Ahmaninejad, which I think is essentially correct. I think, like Nasser (from my reading of him back in my college days when I had to write a paper on the Aswan Dam for a course on the Middle East...packed that year due to the first Gulf War, I might add), Ahmaninejad has designs of conquest. I think the notion of a "crescent" of Shiite persuasion is very real, and what the Bush administration (and the douchebags in the PNAC) doesn't seem to understand, or want to admit, is that by throwing all of our cards onto the table in Iraq, cards that have turned out to be a very bad hand, the likes of Ahmaninejad are now emboldened because they know we're probably not going to send troops over there. And Kim Jong-Il is playing the role of a Sideshow Bob quite predictably. The only thing missing here is the Cold War backdrop.