I agree - I didn't chunk the pieces of the ideology itself very well. It's a dissonant mix and I can't always parse it well. Iran is a... bicameral society wi

I agree - I didn't chunk the pieces of the ideology itself very well. It's a dissonant mix and I can't always parse it well. Iran is a... bicameral society with, as you say, a high degree of sophistication coeexisting with fundamentalism. As the sting of 1953 fades, I can't help but think we'll eventually achieve normal relations with them. I don't, for example, see as much screaming about the Obama Administrations attempts to thaw things out by the Rightist press as I used to. It's not a stretch for present-day Americans to denounce Dulles-brothers style adventurism. This being said, I think of ISIS itself as an international attractor for disaffected youth, with an apparently explicit emphasis on martyrdom. And yes - I expect we'll keep a very close watch on Pakistan. I just meant that if Pakistan were to fall, it wouldn't be a huge military effort to ... secure it. It would be a big logistical effort but I think of Gulf War I as the model. Of course, then we'd stiffen the resolve of those who oppose Westerners being there at all. I am also sure that we'd try to use the fig leaf of the U.N.