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"I do wonder why an internal resistance to Ahmagonnadojihad hasn't taken place yet?"

Regime did an artful job of framing the issue over the past few years. Even the most reformist, pro-Western Iranians have been convinced that "peaceful nuclear power" is an issue of patriotism and a sovereign right that cannot be surrendered. They have been told that if the Pakistanis next door can have them (and they played footsie with al Qaeda - - not nice folks) and the Israelis can have a couple hundred, why pick on poor Iran for just wanting a little electricity? They have also heard the "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" chants so long that their president's rhetoric goes in one ear and out the other. I don't think they take him seriously like the rest of the world does. But he is deadly serious.

German military prior to WWII thought Hitler was a nutty little nitwit they could use to further their own rearmament agenda. They figured out too late who was being manipulated, who was being serious, and who was not. Some tried to stop him, but Hitler already had several years to consolidate power and they could never overcome that to achieve a "critical mass" to overthrow the regime (but came close in July 1944).

Iranian military is probably making the same mistake. They are failing to understand how this man and the new faction that is taking control is about to lead Iran to the same destruction Hitler brought Germany (or even a far worse fate). In private, they probably see Ahmad-e-nejad as a nutty little nitwit. Bad mistake. It took D-Day for the German High Command to understand what was about to happen to Germany. And by that time it was far too late.

I hope the Iranians understand that the American retired generals hyperventilating on TV about our civilian leadership are probably motivated more about what might happen three months from now than what happened three years ago. The son is not his father. This one is not bluffing about using nukes (like Bush 41 did before the Gulf War).

I'm guessing that the light bulb came on a few weeks ago in the Pentagon that the idea of the U.S. preempting with tactical nuclear weapons was actually being taken seriously by the civilian leadership and wasn't some elaborate bluff (Arkin's blog "Early Warning" on the Washington Post website has been talking about this for weeks). That's probably when the calls went out to their retired general buddies to sound the alarm that somebody is off their nut talking about initiating a nuclear war. So rather than cast the situation as a bad remake of Dr. Strangelove, I guess they trotted out all the old arguments about how such a hash of things were made three years ago and someone needs to go. I doubt all the hub-bub is really about Iraq.

I think Rummy and Cheney (who was ready as SecDef to nuke Iraq the first time - - footnoted in horror by Powell in his 1995 biography - - and was on CBS' 60 Minutes a few weeks after 9/11 talking about nuking Afghanistan) have some folks at the Pentagon freaked out. If this scenario is true (and its just a guess based on connecting the dots), I think it is an overreaction. Bush plays everything close to the vest. Only he (and maybe Cheney) would really know how seriously they take that option. But by burying things so deep and hardening them up, the Iranians are basically daring Bush to use nukes as that is really the only way to dig those facilities out in a way they cannot be used again.

I wish the Iranian military leaders would get half as freaked out about the truly insane and deadly serious things their maniacal civilian leadership are actually saying and the suicidal activities they are actually pursuing as our generals seem to be about things that happened three years ago and things that may or may not be considered for the future.