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I disagree, primarily because they have taken this route before. They've actually "deported" over 500 al-Qaeda suspects, but in every case they've been sent either to friendly locations or handed over to friendly elements of the receiving nation's security forces. Case in point would be Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj, who was "deported" from Iran to Saudi Arabia and then promptly released by the Saudi security forces.

"Iran is feeling the pressure, with a newly freed Iraq on one side and an embryonic democratic Afghanistan on the other."

Iran is meddling in both. They sent SCIRI over to Iraq to stir up trouble there and then released Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to do the same in Afghanistan. They also have a cozy alliance set up with Ismail Khan over in Herat province and have been making sure that they can use his Hazaras as a force from which to import muscle every time the locals start protesting.

"And the U.S. is now publicly and loudly releasing names (including Zarqawi) of key members hiding in Iran."

Al-Adel, Zarqawi, al-Jamal, and al-Masri are right now the key al-Qaeda members hiding in Iran, plus bin Laden's family. They are likely under the protection of the Revolutionary Guards, which means that any attempt to extradite them is going to be difficult, so Iran may toss a few token al-Qaeda the Saudis' way to placate their fears. They're still providing safe harbor to the leadership of Ansar al-Islam, and they're a lot smaller fish than the likes of al-Adel and Co.

"I imagine the CIA will take care of matters if Iran does not handle this situation in a "diplomatically" efficient manner."

The CIA may well have already tried this. RAW has been claiming for months that the CIA snatched Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri off of an Iranian military base near Zabol. Whether that is true or not, who knows, but if it was then we have a clear connection between al-Qaeda and at least elements of the Iranian regime.

"At least Iran isn't taking the Syrian route, claiming that Al Qaeda doesn't exist."

No, instead they've done a back and forth route as to whether or not there are any in Iran. This type of doublespeak emanating from Tehran makes it very difficult to take anything that is said by Iranian officials seriously.

They've actually "deported" over 500 al-Qaeda suspects, but in every case they've been sent either to friendly locations or handed over to friendly elements of the receiving nation's security forces.

I agree that's a problem. Iran is still making noises about releasing these folks to "friendly" (not the Great Satan!) countries. And hopefully our government will publicly state that that's unacceptable. But the Iranian Foreign Minister, who the other day said there were no senior AQ officials in Iran, is now saying "Well, we have no way of knowing who these folks are and whether or not they're senior." I expect that within a few days Iran will suddenly have found a way to identify a few names, and I pray (not holding breath here) one of them is a big fish.

As you say, once the names of those held eventually come out they may only be token sacrifices to appease the U.S. We'll see. But I think Iran is feeling the pressure. I don't think Iran has changed its actions, so much as the U.S. is now turning its attention east from Iraq to Iran.