While American news concentrates only on the Iranian nuclear program, they are ignoring a lot of what's actually going on in the country. Ahmenidijbad is Iran's Bush, and he is managing the economy there more disasterously than W ever dreamed of. There is 30% annual inflation going on in Iran, and Ahmneidijbad is pressuring the Iranian Central Bank to lower interest rates, thus feeding the inflationary fires. The nuke program in Iran is being used as a diversion from the other things, but the ayatollahs are not happy. A new speaker of parliament was elected with about 80% of the vote, and he is seen as a direct challenge to Ahmenidijbad in the next election. On top of this, there are critical shortages of consumer goods, and the Iranians are having their problems at the pump.

All of this is a recipe for social unrest in Iran down the road. Iran's internal preoccupations make it a poor aggressor against anyone at this stage of the game. Wake up, America! In January 2009, the issue may be who to negotiate with in the Iranian government, as the situation may be so confused.

I totally agree with your post. I do want to add that I'm still somewhat discouraged. The Chicago Tribune had an editorial discussing the current change in the Iran's political climate only to come to the conclusion that it's not good enough.

Just like the intelligence report that stated that Iran had stopped it's nuclear weapons program that was dismissed.

Now that the IAEA commission report that states that Iran is continuing its uranium enrichment for nuclear energy but is not completely forthcoming, the corp media has jumped on that as admission that Iran is secretly making weapons.

If Iranians elected a completely new government that was eagar to make peace with the world and stopped all nuclear research, it would be the administration's worst nightmare. They don't want a peaceful Iran.