Saturday, 20 November 2010 Gates, Like Many Others, Has It
Exactly Backwards: An Attack On Iran Will Fatally Weaken The
Regime  The Washington Post notes in an editorial:   "In an
interview with Gerald F. Seib of the Wall Street Journal this
week, Mr. Gates elaborated on his point. Saying that the Iranian
leadership had been "surprised by the impact of the sanctions"
imposed this year, he argued that a military solution "will only
. . . bring together a divided nation, it will make them
absolutely committed to obtaining nuclear weapons and they will
just go deeper and more covert. So I think the political-
economic strategy is the one we have to continue to pursue."  Is
this true? Is it true that severe damage inflicted on the
nuclear project "will only bring together a divided nation"? On
the face of it, this is the kind of thing that many will find
plausible. And no doubt, even among Iranian opponents of the
Islamic Republic who, nonetheless, remain Iranian nationalists
and believe that Iran -- their Iran, t