I’ve been to Israel and really like the county. That being said I also have enormous respect for the Iranians, and consider it an incredible country. If relatio

I’ve been to Israel and really like the county. That being said I also have enormous respect for the Iranians, and consider it an incredible country. If relations between the US and Iran were even somewhat stable I have no doubt it would be the model of the mid/near east. I also suspect that it’s hardliners would be a lot less empowered, but then again we’d never know that because the US has not even attempted a different strategy since the days of Jimmy Carter (but there have been many attempts by smart US politicians). Kind of weird how we ended up here. Shia Islam is comparatively speaking the more peaceful of the two main Islamic groups (e.g. ISIS which is Sunni wants to kill all Shias, which was something even Bin Laden thought was crazy). Also I think it has been argued pretty convincingly that the shouts of “Death to America” in Tehran is really a mistranslation / exaggeration. Israel has more to fear from Saudi/Sunni incompetence in managing the Middle East than it does in Iran, a country that has managed a decent amount of stability in the face of overwhelming sanctions and the Arab Spring.