"The editors at The New York Times could save money by cutting out Michael Gordon as the middleman, and instead just reprint Bush Administration press releases on their front page. In this piece of "journalism," Gordon makes Judith Miller look like I.F. Stone.

Nevertheless, Gordon's article is extremely important because in it Bush has tipped his hand. He is going to attack Iran. And the editors of The New York Times have tipped their hand too. They are on board.

The question is: Will the Congress and the American people, after what has transpired in Iraq, fall for yet another media-hyped call for war?"

The sentiment of the people of Iran in general is positively pro-Western. It would be a serious error to force this nation into a war stance. THey aren't well organized enough to stand up in a war, but the point is that if things were handled correctly, Iran could become a major Western ally. The right-wing extremism of the few hard-core ayatollah types does not reflect the politics or sentiment of most people in Iran. When crack-downs occasionally occur trying to enforce stricter observance of various religious behaviours on people, the broad response is to go along until it dies out and then resume the more Western style. At least this seems to be the case in the large middle class of Tehran.

US interests would be MUCH better served in securing the alliance of this middle class and helping it salvage the poorly managed economy .

A