Seth writes: "Still, I think it's a big risk to think that the influence of those who adhere to the most apocalyptic aspects of "Hidden Iman" doctrine, don't or will not have any influence in a nuclear Iran." I agree. I think apocalyptic doctrines running loose among a nation's leaders are always a danger, as Seth wisely points out. In fact, I too would state categorically that it's a big risk to think that the influence of those who adhere to the most apocalyptic aspects of the "End Times" doctrine don't or will not have any influence in a nuclear United States. Right now, there are people roaming the halls of Congress, the corridors of the Pentagon and the stately rooms of the White House who believe that Jesus Christ will return with sword and fire to destroy the earth, plunge unbelievers into everlasting hellfire and establish eternal paradise on earth for the holy remnant. Many of these apocalyptics command vast earthly armies; some of them even have their fingers on nuclear triggers.

Call me unimaginative, but I find the fact of apocalyptic extremists in possession of actual nuclear weapons somewhat more disturbing than the possibility that apocalyptic extremists might someday possess nuclear weapons, somewhere down the road.

I thought I had raised a counterpoint to Seth's "suggestions" (which were actually offered as assertions of fact) that Iran is waging a "war by proxy" throughout the Middle East right now. It's true that I concentrated on the unproven (and ever-shifting) allegations of direct Iranian involvement in killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan; this seemed to me somewhat more relevant to the topic at hand. As for proxy war-waging in the Middle East, I think it might be easier to determine who isn't waging proxy war there. (I don't think Monaco or San Marino have an iron in the fire there, but you never know.)

Just recently we've seen the results of some proxy warring in Lebanon, when a Sunni extremist group hitherto unknown suddenly found itself flush with arms and cash -- and new foreign members -- and began taking over Palestinian refugee camps in the country. This was, as Sy Hersh reports, part of a U.S.-Saudi deal to try to counterbalance the strength of Hezbollah in Lebanon. But just as with the jihadi "freedom fighters" supported so staunchly by the Americans and Saudis and others in Afghanistan back in the 1980s, our present-day Dr. Frankensteins lost control of their creation, which began wreaking unauthorized havoc on its own. The result, of course, has been a large number of innocent Palestinian refugees killed, and tens of thousands made homeless; great embarrassment once again for the American-backed Lebanese Army -- and no harm whatsoever to the political standing of Hezbollah.

There are also many credible reports that the Bush Administration is waging proxy war inside Iran itself, where sectarian and ethnic separatists have stepped up their terrorist attacks. (Or their insurgent activities, or their freedom fighting; take your pick.) The Bush Administration's remarkable support for the bizarre Iranian MEK cult -- which has waged a terrorist war against Tehran for many years, safely coddled by Saddam Hussein, who also used them as enforcers against his domestic enemies -- is yet another example of sure-enough proxy warring. [Shall we discuss the U.S. proxy war in Somalia? Well, it's not strictly part of the Middle East, so perhaps another time.] Israel is also a past master of proxy war, having supported the growth of Hamas to act as armed rival to Arafat's Fatah -- only, again, to lose control of the proxy.

It's a dizzying affair all around, especially as both proxies and patrons tend to change sides a lot. So it is not surprising that Iran is moving its pieces around on this bloodstained gameboard too, just as Israel and the United States and the Saudis and the Egyptians and the Russians are. But given that this proxy warring was going on long before the Iranian revolution in 1979, it seems a bit odd to suggest that the present Iranian regime is responsible for all of it, or that it would cease if this regime were overthrown.

This is not to defend the Iranian regime in its support for violent extremism in any way. It is deeply abhorrent. But with the United States handing out guns and dollars to proxies all over the world -- part of a policy openly detailed in Congressional testimony years ago by Paul Wolfowitz -- not to mention the U.S. empowerment, training and arming of sectarian factions in Iraq (and the not-so-proxy army of more than 150,000 troops the United States has in Iraq) -- it seems a bit hypocritical to single out Iran as some kind of special, overwhelming threat to the stability of the Middle East.

The main point of the current debate is not about the nature of the Iranian regime, or its odious practices. If it were, we could all just sit down and have a nice, calm discussion about crafting the best-informed, most effective and most carefully nuanced American diplomatic response to Iran. But we all know that the unspoken background to any policy discussion about Iran today is the Bush Administration's advanced planning for a military strike against Iran, its increasingly insistent PR blitz to foment war fever against Iran, and the open, indeed frenzied calls for war against Iran by Administration allies outside the White House. The real question of the day is this: Will Bush pull the trigger on war with Iran or not? The arguments against this course are offered not as support for Iran, but as demonstrations that the threats, real and imagined, posed by Iran in no way rise to a level necessitating armed conflict -- much less a Tojo-like, "pre-emptive" sneak attack like that dreamed of by so many Bush supporters.

Oh by the way, the Saudis have already tried to get a nuclear bomb: they were paying Saddam Hussein billions of dollars to build one for them, or rather, to give them some of his, if and when his 1980s nuclear weapons program proved successful, as the New Yorker reported way back in 1994. The Saudi-Saddam nuke push occurred during the period when the Saudis' close family friend, George H.W. Bush, was signing presidential directives ordering reluctant U.S. government agencies to cooperate more closely with Saddam, even to the point of approving the sale of "dual-use" WMD technology to Iraq. And this was long after the poison gas attack at Halabja, which troubled President Bush and his top aides -- such as Dick Cheney -- not at all. And why was this? Because Saddam -- until he went off the reservation with that attack on the elder Bush's longtime business partners, the Kuwaiti royals -- had served as such a good U.S. proxy in the Middle East.