June 20, 2014--Persia

I am having second thoughts about our working in tandem with Iran to push back against the jihadist ISIS forces that are threatening to fully overrun Iraq and implement a holocaust against Shiite Iraqis and impose sharia law. They are already massacring thousands in parts of Iraq they have seized

These really are bad people. Even Al-Qaeda has renounced them as too violent. When you have Al-Qaeda pronouncing you to be too violent that qualifies as violent.

Already openly engaged in talks with Iran about its nuclear program, something that would have been difficult to imagine just a year ago when the drumbeat in Israel and among militarists in our own country were pressing the Obama administration to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran; as ISIS fighters stormed across northern and central Iraq, the US and Iran, again openly, began to talk about the possibility of coming to the assistance of the Iraqi government, as ineffective and exclusionary as it is, because the prospect of ISIS controlling most of the country, and the region that includes Syria, was too apocalyptic to contemplate.

There are at least three possible scenarios for the tormented Middle East--

Perhaps most likely is decades of interminable warfare ranging from small scale internecine civil wars between ethnic, tribal, and religious rivals to region-wide strife. Libya is an example of the former while what we are now seeing across Syria and Iraq is characteristic of the latter, with ISIS already proclaiming that what they are up to is not just the imposition of sharia law but the reestablishment of the Caliphate of the 7th through 15th centuries.

Second is the reemergence of a class of local tyrants who can, through force and terror, suppress the aspirations of the region's fractious peoples. Saddam Hussein in Iran, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the Shah and ayatollahs in Iran, the royal family in Saudi Arabia, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and currently Bashar al-Assad in Syria are all examples of leaders who were or have been for decades successful at keeping the lid on discontent and political rivals.

Third, though ultimately unlikely, is the scenario I have been reconsidering--the emergence with subtle U.S. support--of three or four regional powers that reassert their historic leadership roles across the region.

Egypt would need to see its revolution concluded to again play its dominant role among Arabs. Turkey would have to see it influence spread among moderate Muslims. Saudi Arabia would have to open its society further and come to play a greater regional role. And Iran would have to again become Persia.

Some have argued, for example, that Iran's nuclear aspirations have less to do with developing atomic weapons to use against Israel than an expression of national pride. For a people with an ancient and proud history to see itself overshadowed by the Saudis and Israelis is deeply humiliating. To again be able to play an influential role in the region might satisfy those national ambitions.

Of course the likelihood of any progressive scenario advancing is remote. The Sunnis and Shia have been murderous rivals since the death of the Prophet 1,400 years ago and Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran eye each other venomously.

But perhaps our trying to find a way to bring Iran into the family of moderate nations is worth a try. Everything else seems too depressing to think about 24 hours before the summer solstice.