"So why are the Iranians acting so provocatively? My theory is that they looked at the landscape and saw an excellent opportunity to start pushing their weight. Probably the most important part of the landscape, as they viewed it, is right next door in Iraq, where the only power in the world with sufficient resources to punish them for bad behavior is wallowing in the deadly mire of one of the worst ideas since Vietnam.
From the Baltimore Sun:

Bush team's many missteps make it harder to handle Iran

By G. JEFFERSON PRICE III
Originally published January 17, 2006

Whatever the Bush administration may think about the medieval backwardness of the Iranians, they have excellent intelligence in Iraq and they are certainly as capable as the average American of knowing how badly bogged down America is in Iraq. Why, the United States can't even get satisfactory body armor to its troops in the field.

The deceptions, or misinformation, or whatever that was, that the Bush administration used to launch its war in Iraq while all of its important allies except the British urged restraint and patience, meanwhile, have diminished America's stature and credibility in this current crisis with a country that actually does have a nuclear capacity. ...."