The US war in Iraq has been a highly destabilizing disaster for the Middle East region and a major boon to Iran's power. If Iraq is a quagmire, then, as Paul Rogers argues at Open Democracy, the significant build-up of US forces in the Persian Gulf appear to have much to do with a possible crisis with Iran. The Bush administration is also ratcheting up the pressure on Iranians inside Iraq acting covertly against the US troops.

Alan Moir

I do not think that the US talks tough on Iran, but otherwise is too bogged down in Iraq to pose a danger to Tehran. At the very least it's more a case of brinkmanship by the US. But it is brinkmanship in the hot house context of Washington's neo-con war rhetoric. So we watch the next step in brinksmanship to judge how far it is going to be taken.

Israel looks isolated in the region at the moment. People in Jerusalem, who are living under a dark cloud of fear, are thinking about a war with Iran. Not if it should be started, but when and how, so as to prevent another holocaust. The reality, as Jacques Chirac, the President of France, pointed out is self-evident: if an Iranian nuclear bomb were launched at Israel, Israel would wipe Tehran from the face of the earth. The Iranian rulers are not mad and the "balance of terror" will do its job of ensuring regional stability.

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