Wurmser is, I think, incorrect in applying this truism to the current situation. At the moment the very last thing any Middle East government is worrying about is U.S. weakness. What they are, and should be, concerned about is "how far will Bush go?"
Iran's government will reform in two ways - first, it will secularize, second, it will cease the support of revolutionary Islamic terrorism. I said "will." The degree to which it does these will describe with accuracy the degree to which the religious arm of the government keeps its direct power, its influence, and its heads, in that order. They can give a little on these two aims and prolong the process, or they can be forced to give it all at once by an angry populace and end up losing the maximum in all three measures.
I think personally that our most effective approach is in subversion, not in direct force. We need do little more than rebuild Iraq for the ultimate subversive force, the view of freedom across the border, to work its inevitable seduction. Further engagement with the people of Iran through the broadcast media and the Internet (yes, I think the latter has arrived as a force of freedom) will speed the process peacefully. We're their best bet for freedom just as we were for the Iraqis, and everyone there knows it.
Attention will need to be paid to that most important element, the Iranian army. Certainly the younger elements within it are not as predisposed against the "Great Satan" (the term is now used in irony to ridicule the mullahs) as they were a generation ago. The Shah and SAVAK could be credibly blamed on the United States, the mullahs and the Basiji cannot. Most are too young to remember the former, and the latter are in their faces.