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Last: if anyone in the U.S. really cares about the fate of the political opposition in Iran, as opposed to simply seeing it as a temporarily useful tool for attacking the Iranian government, imposing a gas embargo on the country as punishment for enriching uranium is a surefire way to kick the Iranian political opposition in the stomach. What is Mr. Mousavi supposed to say, when reporters ask him what his position is on the gas embargo, as they surely will? If he says he supports the embargo, he may be politically toast in Iran: every bad thing that happens to Iranians as a result of the embargo will be blamed on Mousavi by the Iranian government. If he says he is against it, then he's saying that the signature Iran policy of the West is a policy to attack Iranian civilians; that's going to reinforce the government's case that Iran doesn't have the luxury for democracy and human rights because it's under external threat. The more such an embargo bites, the more the dynamic of Iranian politics would be: who hates the U.S. the most? I thought that was the dynamic that we were trying to get away from.

When you read down in the press reports, Israeli officials often concede that their "fear" about Iran isn't the prospect that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons and nuke Tel Aviv. It's that if Iran has "breakout capacity" - the theoretical ability, in a crisis, to get on a fast track of six months to a year to acquiring a nuclear weapon - that will increase Iran's influe... >>>