I highly recommend this podcast from a talk by prof. David Menashri, given at the UCLA Burkle Center for Foreign Relations. It provides a (to me at least) unique insight into how Iran works and why.
What I really like about the talk is that Menashri (an Israeli jew) obviously knows Iran intimately, having both lived there and speaking Farsi (he also speeks Arabic). He sympathizes with the Iranian revolution, and even has some positive things to say about Ayatollah Khomeini (that he was a stateman and a mediator, not a petty political operative like today's Khamenei). He discusses the present state of the revolution in exactly the light it should be discussed, namely in terms of what it has done for the people who revolted (hint: very little).
The policy theme of the talk is Iran's nuclear weapon program. Here, Menashri points out the implications of combining two facts: (1) Iran's president Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "eliminated and destroyed" and (2) Iran having nuclear weapons. He also describes how the Iranian leadership sees itself as the standards-bearer for a new era to follow after the expected fall of the Western civilization, in particular the USA who is the "Greater Satan". In his eyes, too many believe that the nuclear program is Israel's problem, when the prospects of a nuclear Iran (rightly) scares the heck out of for instance Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and the USA.
It would be interesting to hear second opinions on some ofMenashri's viewpoints. Someone has created a Wikipedia entry to question whether Ahmadinejad really threatened Israel with destruction. This looks like an interesting line of inquiry. Nevertheless, pressuring Iran now seems like a good idea, rather than having Israel and/or the USA chose the military option in panic later.
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