Dwarven Pirate

I have a couple of problems with this article. For instance, he suggests that Iran may want nukes for imperialistic reasons, but I fail to see how one will want to capture territory with nuclear weapons.

"Despite this ambitious military build-up, Iranian officials emphasize that their country does not make any claim on the territory of its neighbors. They also remind possible opponents that Iran has not initiated a regional conflict for more than 200 years.11 Iran’s rivals are nevertheless suspicious of these claims and of the Islamic Republic’s intentions. This suspicion has focused on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions since the early 2000s."

Second, the quote of Ahmadinejad saying "wipe Israel off the map". Its my understanding that not only was he merely quoting Khomeini, but that the sentiment was actually much less inflammatory, more properly translated as 'the Israeli regime must pass from the pages of time', speaking of not Israel the nation, but its ruling elite and Zionist dogma. Of course, it could be that the places I read this were mistaken instead, but you can decide for yourself. I would post links, but google does a quick, simple job of it:

the israeli regime must pass from the page of time - Google Search

Third, the passages regarding air power dont really jibe. He makes the point that air power in the late Israel-Hezbollah conflict was ineffective after they ran out of targets, then goes on to warn that it will likely also be ineffective if US attacks nuclear facilities. Well, wouldnt they be the targets, and once gone the offensive use of air power would end? So why the warning? Am I being obtuse, or is he dissembling?

Finally, what seems to amount to the main point of the article, where he offers commentary on whether or not Iran is to be trusted with nuclear weaponry (and perhaps more importantly whether Israel would stand for it). All he offers is the following article which seems to me to be pretty far out in space:

Free Article - WSJ.com

Here is some commentary on that:

The Arabist » Bernard Lewis: Armegeddon in two weeks
Now we have regional experts telling us who's undeterrable? (Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog)

So, this brings us right back to the question of are the Iranians madmen or not, lol.

This other articles are interesting, but what I find interesting about it them is the question of to what end this designation is given. What is to be gained by it from our point of view? Do we expect Iran to dissolve the units involved? Intuitively, I expect that its simply semantics laid in place for justification of future military action against Iran. Just one more arrow pointing toward our intentions.