Maybe scared Americans should learn to get a grip and live with the prospect of a nuclear Iran.

Memo to the scaredy-cats: Pakistan with the bomb is much more dangerous than Iran with the bomb, so if you could stomach the former you'll be fine with the latter.

Israel has the bomb and has been on nuclear alert more than once. Tehran under Khatami -and backed by Khamenei- offered a deal on nuclear issues across the region including Israel and israel and the US rejected it.
And Nobless O'B is right (though he's stealing my line!) that Pakistan is more unstable and dangerous than Iran, but somehow causes less panic.

In general the willingness to engage [sic] with our israel over its crimes and villify or at least pontificate over the crimes of their Iran, is disgusting. Of the two, Iran is by far the more interesting, with the greater possibilities for the future, politically and culturally. But "they" are foreign.

The Cheney-Rumsfeld Administration realized too late that the invasion of Iraq and the failure of Reconstruction had basically elevated the Iranians to hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf region. They wanted an excuse to cut off Iran's legs, and came up with the expedient of hyping the Iranian nuclear threat.

Now, through clever diplomacy, they have pushed Iran into a deep national committment to obtain nuclear weapons.

American pundits, apparently, are too stupid to even remember a time, when nuclear non-proliferation rested on diplomatically convincing everyone everywhere that non-proliferation was in everyone's mutual best interests. Iran doesn't want Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and American forces in the Persian Gulf to be in possession of nuclear weapons, but guess what? They don't get a choice about any of that. It is now in Iran's national interest to acquire nuclear weapons, and no amount of bullying is likely to deter them from the pursuit of their clear national interest.

American policy, under Cheney-Rumsfeld, has been to encourage proliferation and to make the use of nuclear weapons more likely. It succeeded.

All the earnest handwringing in the world won't make it better. Recognizing what the Cheney-Rumsfeld policies have been, and why they are so horribly bad, might help, by helping us recognize what U.S. policy should not be. But, I fail to see what this post did in that regard.

I agree with Bruce.

Any attempt to "re-steer" the ship is practically impossible due to the complete dishonesty and failure of the American news media to be responsible journalists. Re-steering the ship (so to speak) requires as a precondition an open and thorough debate of ideas. That debate requires a a public delivery system. The news media must serve as that delivery system. But the news media cannot and will not because they too thoroughly incompetent and have no conception of professional responsibility. They just want to make money.

Re: And Nobless O'B is right (though he's stealing my line!) that Pakistan is more unstable and dangerous than Iran, but somehow causes less panic.

Pakistan's only real enemy or rival is India, which is already a nuclear power itself. The situation has the same MAD stability that the US-Soviet standoff had in the Cold War (which is not to say that error or folly could not trigger catastrophe, which was a Cold War risk too). The problem with Iran is that it has multiple enemies/rivals: the US, Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds, Turkey, the Saudis, Israel, even Russia and the Caucasus states. That makes a nuclear Iran, even one with good intentions, a lot more destabilizing than a nuclear Pakistan.

Re: Other than that it is largely united in language and history

History, maybe, but not language. About a quarter of Iran's population are Turkic-speaking Azeris. There are also large Arab, Baluchi, and Turkomen minorities.

On the larger question, I do not mean to imply that Pakistan is perfectly safe to be armed with nukes, only that the effect of a nuclear armed Pakistan is limited to its own region and the only nation that needs worry much about the possibility of Pakistani nukes falling on it is India-- which, as a nuclear power itself, can threaten massive retailiation. Now to be sure, political upheaval in Pakistan could indeed result in a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan and that's not a happy thing to contemplate. But even that ghastly outcome would be largely local to the two countries (and anyone else unlucky enough to be downwind-- Afghanistian, western China, maybe Nepal).
By focusing only on Iran's internal situation you are missing the effect on Iranian nukes on its neighbors, all of whom, save Russia and Israel, are currently non-nuclear. Given nukes in a non-nuclear neighborhood Iran is free to bully its neighbors with impunity (much as the Soviet Union was) until those neighbors get sick of it and nuclearize themselves. If India vs Pakistan is a dangerous potnetial, why isn't Iran vs Turkey vs Saudia Arabia vs Israel vs Russia vs Egypt? How do you find any stability in that mix. And oh yes, it's all sitting right on the world's lifeblood of oil supplies.
So absolutely not: a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. Thats doesn't mean I am endorsing Bushism, but I am endorsing the strongest possible moves by the internatioanl community short of outright war to prevent that end.

Re; Iran is a mess, but I like Iran.

I cannot believe anyone posting on this website likes an oppressive, brutal, patriarchal theocracy. The Mullahs make Pat Robertson look like Mother Jones.

Re: I didn't say I like the mullahs, I said I like Iran.

I happen to like Russia. Seriously: I speak the language, and I'm even an Orthodox Christian. But I did not like the Soviet Union bristling with nukes, and I'm not entirely pleased that there are so many of them still in that country today. (And for that matter I'm none too happy at the number of nukes in my own country).
I'll gladly join you in toasting the ancient and fabulous civilization east of the Zagros-- but that civilization and the world as a whole will be vastly better off without atomics roosting on its turquoise minarets.

Re: And yet you seem to take this discussion more personally than I do; maybe it's a religious conflict you have with Islam. I have no interest in such things, especially when hidden behind false moral rhetoric. You're bullshitting me son.

I do not have a "religious conflict" with Islam. I have a ideological conflict with any profoundly illiberal regieme which treats women as chattel, denies basic human rights, and executes people for heresy, apostacy, blasphemy, incorrect sexual orientation, etc. Again, I am absolutely astonished that anyone posting on a liberal website would be blase (your word) about such things.
Also, I'm not your son. Please drop the patronizing act. It's needlessly rude.

One more time - the CIA, the IAEA, and everyone else has admitted that there is in fact no evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran.

Both Israel and the US have formally and explicitly threatened Iran with attacks. In the case of the US, it has formally threatened Iran with a NUCLEAR FIRST STRIKE.

Who is a threat to whom?