2-"As to why Iran wants nuclear weapons (which they vehemently deny wanting), there are many forces in the region they might perceive as potential threats, including those driven by Shia/Sunni conflicts involving Saudi Arabia and other Arab states."
I am sorry, but I just don't buy this line of argument at all. Saudi Arabia was barely able to protect itself against a decrepit Iraqi army in 1991. They still need thousands of Americans to protect their oilfields. I don't think Iran is looking at acquiring nuclear weapons because of any current and future threats from the Saudis.

3-"The Iranian theocracy, while not reckless, is however not always completely rational in the way it assesses its situation, or at least in the way it announces its assessments."
So because the Iranians in your view are not rational in the way they "announce their assessments" it follows that we can impute motives to them? Image if anybody said that about the US or the West in general after that pre-Iraq invasion presentation at the UN and the debacle that followed.
All in all, what I hoped to affirm in my piece is that Israel, Iran and others in the region are mere regional powers jockeying for command. The moment we start looking at things that way without creating exceptions for some, the clearer the situation will be.

Uuummm, how does Cirincione know why these countries began developing civilian nuclear programs? This is not exactly the kind of information countries broadcast. And why does he attribute that to Iran's nuclear ambitions, but does not attribute Iran's nuclear ambitions to the Israelis nukes?
And also if these countries started their nuclear programs because of Iran's program, then they should have started in the eighties because as Cirincione acknowledges, Iran's nuclear program actually started under the Shah, a US ally with the help of the US, the Germans and the French.

I think this idea of presenting Iran's desire for nukes as threatening to the region when Israel's nukes are not should be relinquished because it simply has no basis. The reality is, nobody knows what a country's leaders are capable of in a moment of deep crisis as Harry Truman found out on August 6, 1945.

Now on the subject of Iran itself, here's a novel idea I haven't heard thrown around. What if the US as part of its Iran Strategy tried to convince Israel to go the way of South Africa and get rid of its nuclear weapons as a way of persuading the iranians that their security will not be compromised by not developing a bomb?
Because for all the talk, it ultimately comes down to security. The Iranians look around their neighbourhood and they see Pakistanis with nukes. Indians with nukes. Isrealis with nukes. And the US has nukes and is around them in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in the Gulf States. On top of that, they are being threatened daily by US and Israelis politicians and officials. So what to do? How does one make sure they never get invaded? Get some nukes and they'll stop f*ing with you.

On the issue of what is viewed as incremental gains, you're probably right. But again it's a matter of perspective. I depends on what one views as the end goal in this whole healthcare debate. I will simply reiterate my original point and leave it at that. The profit motive is the problem and if we are trying to get to a society where the health insurance industry is 0% of the economy,giving them more customers by requiring that all citizens purchase healthcare, then doing a backroom deal with the pharmaceutal companies and then taking out any government options is nothing but a setback.

4-"(...) It still displays a lack of awareness regarding the US as it is, as it was, and (worst of all) how it could be"
This is a generic sentence that could have been lifted from anywhere to attack any argument. Change is complex and takes time. I acknowledged that in a previous comment. Wishing for change is not ignoring "facts on the ground". It is accepting that those facts do not have to be permanent facts. The Health Insurance industry is 1/6th of the economy. That doesn't mean one can hope for a time when it is 0% of the econmy. I think this mindset is precisely what stands in the way of any change.