I get more and more alarmed about Iran. Here is a country with many things I like. It's intelligensia seems really smart and many of this "class" seem sympathetic to Western culture. (we might have said similar things about some Iraqis before the war).
But one of the secondary consequences of our invasion of Iraq, I believe, was the election of Ahmadinejad, the empowerment of the extreme right. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17327091/
The Bush administration does not have a good enough record with the truth about these things for me to trust them. But Ahmadinejad himself says enough that I don't need to trust the Bush administration to see this man as a threat.
So just when I have gotten the Arabic letters down, now I have to start on Farsi. Actually, I think it might be fun to take a stab at Farsi. The letters are very similar to Arabic (with a few predictable extras if you know Sanskrit), but it's an Indo-European language related to Sanskrit (ancient Indian language). Since I took two semesters of Sanskrit at the University of Kentucky and know how to read several other Indo-European languages, Farsi might actually be fun!
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TR Reid points out in his book "The United States of Europe" that after 9/11 there were vigils held for the American people in Iran. It's a parallel that comes into my head a lot when I hear about Iran in the news these days. Such a change, in less than six years.
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