It seems that the 9/11 commission is going to state that some of the hijackers had "passed through Iran" in late 2000 or early 2001. I realize that the regime in Iran has been and is probably still involved in some "terrorist activity", and I'm not going to defend the regime. The problem is when Time magazine prints the headline "9/11 Commission Finds Ties Between al-Qaeda and Iran", there are 3 things I see: 9/11, al-Qaeda, and Iran. A casual glance and you'd think that Iran was behind the attack. Maybe the hijackers crossed the Pakistani or Afghan border with Iran at some point. Does that mean that the Iranian people were complicit in the 9/11 attacks and that we should invade the country and possibly kill tens of thousands of Iranians as well as thousands of American troops? I know how insane (I knew there was a reason that I removed his link from my site) that sounds, but I'm afraid that this is the sort of logic that the Bush administration and the neo-conservatives use to create their foreign policy. Afterall, these cold warriors would love to have a nation-state to blame. I hope I'm completely wrong and they realize that there is a wonderful democratic movement growing in Iran and "containment" of the regime is the best policy.

On another note, I started reading Gore Vidal's Imperial America. Vidal is not only entertaining, but his vast knowledge about American imperial history gives a rather unique view of our current excursions into the Middle East.