Rachel: As Noah Millman points out on his blog, Iran currently looks more like China

’89 than Russia ‘91. The regime seems to have a good grip on the armed

forces; they will use major force to crush dissent; and this will probably

work. A certain amount of flattery & accommodation — paying respects to

the ancient Persian nation, their “legitimate national interests,” etc. –

might keep them on the straight and narrow, but I don’t see this as certain,

& might just further inflate their sense of national entitlement. The big

question is: are the mullahs rational actors, as the ChiComs have (so far)

proved to be? I don’t know, and I’m not sure anyone else does.

And all these conversations we’re having are taking place 5,000 miles away.

Wonder how things look from Tel Aviv? Probably their data is better than

ours — there are lots of Israelis from Persian backgrounds. For sure their

intel is better than ours. How could it POSSIBLY be worse?!