Reply #31: um....No.

[dysfunctional press]

Iran isn't going to have nukes of it's own in time to stop whatever it is that's going to happen.
and except for the whole nuke thing- Iran isn't nearly as universally despised as saddaam hussein was.

If Iran wanted to "assert" itself NOW- it would be able to assert itself MUCH harder against the U.S. with the Bourse than with a fledgling nuclear program.

and by choosing now to play with the uranium, rather than 6 months to a year down the road- they very much risk losing out on BOTH the Bourse and The Bomb.

something tells me that china is a lot more than knee-deep in all of this drama too, and that things could get very interesting very quickly...on a global scale.