There is ZERO evidence of any nuclear weapons program in Iran, and Iran has made several nuclear compromise offers that far exceed its legal obligations -- such as the offer to restrict their enrichment to a few centrifuges, and to open their nuclear program up to joint US participation -- an idea endorsed by the IAEA and US experts. These offers were simply ignored.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/opinion/05iht-edzarif.html

And the US has no leg to stand on in complaining about Iran considering its total and blatant disregard for international law and legalization of torture, not to mention support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war.

Then why hide the nuclear facility at Qom? If you say it's because Iran thinks the rest of the world is too nosy, you've just made my point. In the '30's Germany had every "right" to it's industrial complex, but what did the leaders do with it? Again, the world has learned from history to watch for certain signs from dictators and has every right to be concerned. I would say Ahmadinejad falls handily into that category. Case closed.

They "hid" (not really -- it was obvious on satellite imagery, and the Iranians knew this t00) the facility in Qom because it is meant to protect Iran's nuclear program in case of bombings. There's no evidence of any nuclear activity there. El Baradei himself said it is just a hole in the mountain.

Hass, there are three types of countries, those with WMDs, those that want WMD's, and those that don't want WMD's because they have a close ally who has WMD's. Having a few nukes entitles a country to do almost anything within its own borders, because any country that might interevene knows it could lose its major cities. Having a lot of nukes entitles a country to actually do whatever it wants within its borders and almost anything in dealing with countries that dont have nukes. They can do this with the knowledge that they can never be defeated in a defensive war. The Soviets and Red Chinese were able top do whatever whims their leaders felt. How rapidly they are pursing nukes is debatable, but they most certainly are.

I am not naive, you are. This conflict is not really about nuclear weapons -- it is about Developing Countries resisting a few Developed Countries who want to monopolize the nuclear technology to make reactor fuel, the only energy source of the near future. This conflict predates Iran's nuclear program. "Nuclear weapons" are only a pretext. Look into it.

And, arccording to the IRanians themselves, nuclear weapons would only spark a regional arms race, and at the same time Iran could not hope to match the US or Russian nuclear arsenal. Iran has consistently pressed for a nuclear-weapons free zone in the Mideast since the 1960s, and the Iranians have made signficant compromise offers that would have made it impossible for them to secretly make nukes -- such as their offer to open their nuclear program to joint operation with the US, and to place extreme limits on their centrifuges -- but these were simply ignored by the US (again, because this isn't about nukes.)

This is what ElBaradei himself has said:

"I have seen the Iranians ready to accept putting a cap on their enrichment [program] in terms of tens of centrifuges, and then in terms of hundreds of centrifuges. But nobody even tried to engage them on these offers. Now Iran has 5,000 centrifuges. The line was, "Iran will buckle under pressure." But this issue has become so ingrained in the Iranian soul as a matter of national pride"
http://www.newsweek.com/id/199149

In preemptive response to criticisms about Anti-Foreign Power sentiments making intervention difficult, I concede that it does complicate matters. I would recomend a combination of two actions to compensate. First, we should emphasize how, to a large degree, the current regime is propped up by Russian support. The obvious hit to Russian-American relations is unavoidable, and shouldnt change anything much, since the Russians have shown that, if anything, their current path is towards more aggressive behavior, and there seems to be little we can do about that. The second action is that we should direct any money funding towards independent instituition-building that will increase Iranian international trade and freedom of media, as opposed to direct funding of political groups, which plays into the hands of the current regime.

Iran is NOT "propped up" by the Russians, its people resent US inteference in their affairs especially in the nuclear issue, and the regime enjoys far more domestic legitimacy than people want to acknowledge. Read Ervand Abrahamian's article on why the regime has survived for 30 years:
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer250/abrahamian.html

I did not mean that Iran is entirely subordinate to the Russians. The Iranians buy most of their military hardware from Russia and hold natural resorce contracts with them. These are all in terms very favorable to the Russians. In a wink wink form of repayment, Russia puts its massive international clout behind the Iranians, without declaring it publicly. This is most evident in UN dealings.

I have read your recommended article, and up untill recently I have been in favor of basically leaving Iran alone. For most of its thirty years of existence, Irans intricate checks and balances did work well enough so that it could not be fairly called a true dictatorship. During the 90's, Iran's foreign policy was downright reasonable. Recently, we have seen a prolonged power grab by some groups of the Iranian establishment, this power grab has clearly made the country more aggressive and less stable. Iran's government still enjoys some support, but that is due to the state-run media and it seems to be slipping away.

As for interference, note that I explicitly wrote against funding political groups. I am a huge fan of MAD and do not believe we should try to forcibly end their nuclear weapons program. Large stable countries with apocalyptically destructive weapons are a prime factor in explaining the relative peace and prosperity of the late-20th century. Any country that feels threatened enough by protestors to give official orders to fire on them clearly does not meet that threshhold. A nuclear, democratic, stable Iran could be a great stabilizing anchor in the region. A violent, repressive, dictatorial, chaotic, and corrupt Iran? Not so much.