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OPINION: "Expect More Adventurism From Iran," by Mohamad Bazzi, Wall Street Journal, 24 August 2009.
Solid argument:
Within Iran, the regime has chosen repression over accommodation to the opposition. It is unlikely that the ruling clique can win back legitimacy at home, but it will try to burnish its populist credentials abroad. Otherwise, the entire façade of an axis of resistance [to the West and the U.S. and Israel in particular] will crumble.
That's why I see Iran still reaching for the bomb and for that to be useful to us downstream. Until the rest of the world's great powers get scared enough by the prospect of an exchange in the Gulf (which can't happen with a monopoly situation in Israel), there's no great incentive to go after Iran beyond the usual diplomacy. Rising eastern powers (India, China) won't go for it and repressive local Sunni regimes are boxed in by Iran's clever use of the Israeli card (which only skyrockets upon Israel's coming attack).
But once it's a reality, things change, forcing the emerging of a regional security dialogue in which Israel gains de facto recognition throughout the Arab world and Iran loses its regional revolutionary status, because once you cut the deal with the devil, as the Sovs and Maoists found it, it's all over.
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