Thanks for the ping. Yes the Iran problem is very big, antagonists do challenge the status quo and yes, sometimes analysts are wrong for more reasons than are worth counting. You've painted a clear picture of your perception of Iran but given no indication of how it should be or how to achieve how it should be. What are some of your opinions, analysis and suggestions to resolve the problem?
In the past, when time frames permitted, I had suggested psyops as a weapon of choice to undermine and weaken the Mullahs, followed by a government in exile - such as the one being adopted with the leading Syrian defector and some selective, dark Special Ops activity from perhaps Baluchistan to remove key individual targets.
I had hands-on experience with psyops when I tried to help deal with a dozen urban guerilla tacticians brought into the Soviet embassy in Tehran to destabilize the Shah and orchestrate the daily activities of the anti-Shah groups like the MEK, the Fedayeen and the pro-Khomeini Hezbollahs.
The overthrow of the late-Shah, in case someone still does not know, was initiated by the Soviets and assisted through Jimmy Carter, whom many in Europe called the best Soviet President the Americans ever had.
The Marxist-Islamist MEK and Fedayeen would have been in power today had it not been for the only organized structure left in Iran after the fall of the Shah being the hundreds of mosques throughout the country. Similarly to more recently in Iraq, the clerics took charge of neighborhoods, then towns etc., leading to the implacable hatred between the MEK and Mullahs we see today.
Seeing "their" revolution stolen out from under them, the MEK bombed, assassinated and otherwise killed the clerics at the highest levels.
They fought against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, not as enemies of the Iranian populace but as foes of the Mullahs, in an effort to remove them.
Ever since they have been hunted down and abused even more stringently than Iranian students. Among whom they also numbered. And in turn they have used similar tactics to retain a following of what has become a counter-productive but virulently anti-Mullah personality cult of Massoud and Mariam Rajavi.
Note, however, that having the MEK in power would be as bad if not worse than the Mullahs, even under President AhmadiNejad.
Also, their becoming labeled a terrorist group, originated in an effort to negotiate with the Mullahs who fear and hate the MEK and offer them assurances that America would not back or support their staunchest enemy group.
To cut this short, there is no one-step solution I can think of, since there is no charismatic figure or leader, not even among the Monarchists, who can achieve step one - to eradicate the Mullahs. The young Shah cannot afford to spill the amount of blood needed for him to take over power without it coming back to bite him.
Nobody else has the military means or an adequate number of followers inside or outside Iran.
A drastic possibility, which might work, is a two step one. A government in exile that becomes recognized by the Wetern world and unleashes the MEK (no, I do not like them either, I'm being an analyst/tactician) into Iran.
They do the killing for everyone, demand and receive temporay power and then are removed in phase two, perhaps violently - as murderers for the blood they shed. Much easier to achieve than uprooting hte Mullahs. Unless Putin steps in with total backing of the new MEK government, then we have a problem as bad or worse as before.
Now, with Hojatieh driven AhmadiNejad at the helm and nuclear cabability perhaps emerging as soon as March, a virtual destruction of some 5,000 military and nuclear related targets in a single series of bombing raids seems the only option. Sounds horrible, is horrible. Got any better ideas?
Some collateral damage can be reduced if targets and sites built and hidden below towns and neighborhoods receive ample, early warning of being bombed and people are urged and told to leave - or stay at their own risk. No exact date needs to be given away.
Giving up these targets would not help Iran much as they do not have the means to defend so many sites against an armada of bombers.
Please don't label me a warmonger for laying out strategy that might, just might work to stop a lunatic regime from killing millions of us or sending us into financial difficulties that would make our lives resemble those in Iran - even if only for a while.