Andy: I’m going to be charitable & assume you were celebrating something yesterday. The necessary precondition for the U.S. to go to war against Iran would be a huge change in the temper of the American people. A really major–say, 9/11-sized–outrage against the U.S., clearly, unmistakably perpetrated by the Iranian govt., would probably do the trick. But why on earth would Li’l Squinty do anything so dumb? I mean, I wouldn’t totally rule it out, but for the time being I’ll hang on to that timeshare. As for Iran-Al Qaeda mutual assistance, I’m unimpressed. It’s convenient & opportunistic, against a common enemy–like Churchill allying with Stalin. There is no meeting of minds there, nor even of larger strategy. The Sunnis of Al Qaeda and the Shiites of Iran have fundamental, age-old differences of theological opinion–and these are guys who take their theology SERIOUSLY. Further, most AQ leaders are Saudi (albeit revolutionary). No Iranian is going to give Saudis the key to the liquor cabinet. Absent the US, these guys would be cutting each other’s throats before you could say “Berlin airlift.” This is, after all, the Middle East.