Is Iran a real threat, or a paper tiger?

Every which way you turn in Washington these days there is talk of war, all while the President George W. Bush is gearing up for a major Middle East peace conference this fall. Maybe the president is heeding the counsel of Vegetius of ancient Rome who said: “Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum,” or “whoever wishes for peace, let him prepare for war.” Indeed, those who wish for war are plentiful along the banks of the Potomac. Starting with the Iranian opposition, who have been at the forefront of the leakage of information pertaining to the Islamic republic’s nuclear program. Alireza Jafarzadeh, an opposition figure with close links to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or the People’s Mujahedeen, the first person to reveal the existence of Iran’s secret processing sites, likes to remind the administration that Iran poses “a very, very serious threat to the free world,” and a country which wants “to