Hallucinated nonsense....and some reality.

The nonsense:
Given the level of accurate assessment of our "enemies" in the US--and I'm referring specifically to the nearly 41% in late 2005, down from 64% a year earlier, who continued to believe, against all evidence, that Saddam Hussein had a ready arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction--one wonders what the man-in-the-street imagines about the size and military capability of Iran.

There has been a lot of exaggerated talk over what Iran may be capable of in three or five years. Note the hysteria that came from President Bush earlier this week as he raised the specter of "World War III" in talking about Iran's hallucinated future capability to produce even one thermonuclear device sometime in the future:

"If you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

A small dose of reality:
An excerpt from Fareed Zakaria’s latest analytical column in Newsweek. Zakaria knows more about the Middle East than any other major columnist I know of. AND, he's widely acknowledged as a conservative observer:

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?