And aren't that thrilled with their government. Someone at the WaPo (in the travel section) got off script:

What took place over the next fortnight astonished me. Everywhere I went -- from the traffic-choked streets of Tehran in the north to the dusty desert town of Yazd in central Iran, to the elegant cultural centers of Isfahan and Shiraz -- I was overwhelmed by the warmth and, dare I say it, pro-Americanism of the people I met.

Ponder the irony of that last statement for a moment. While much of the rest of the world seems to be holding their collective noses at us Americans, in Iran people were literally crossing the road to shake an American's hand and say hello. Who knew?

Initially, when Iranians asked me where I was from, I'd suggest they guess. But this game quickly proved too time-consuming -- no one ever guessed correctly. So instead I would simply mumble "American." And then their faces would light up. For better or worse, Iranians are avid fans of America: its culture, films, food, music, its open, free-wheeling society.

Which reraises the question. How to punish a rogue, tyrannical government without harming its people?

This is what I've been always looking at, totalitarian societies of various levels. Some people are loyal to the government nevertheless. Remember that the Iranians somehow got the strong islamic fanatic government to rule themselves even though all did not want it. A lot of it was distrust of the administration that was in power back then.
It was true in Iraq too, a lot of people hated Saddam and were glad when he was taken out of power, but some were not so happy.
It's also a question of what is the alternative...

How to punish a rogue, tyrannical government without harming its people?

A two-pronged assault: on one side, you precision-bomb anything that looks like a barrack, military installation, or government office. Anything that's clearly useful to the bad guys.

At the same time, heavy bombers overhead para-drop millions of "liberty guns" (simple, cheap, rugged firearms) into the cities, along with flyers telling people "now's your chance, don't waste it!". AWACS airplanes orbiting overhead broadcast radio and TV-versions of the same.

Stand back and watch the population clean up the place: now both sides are armed, and there are more good guys than bad guys. They might need occasional air support, such as wall- or bunker-blasting, but technically you don't need to put anyone on the ground except a few FO squads.

Might just work, and would probably be cheap as heck.

(Alternatively, we can wait until we develop miniature hunter-killer bots a la Minority Report, but who wants to wait that long?)

Or just deter any dumb moves by their government for as long as necessary, as we did with the Soviets, and, again just like with the East Bloc, make sure the population knows we are watching, that we want them to be free, and that we want them to thrive.

A similar policy made the former Warsaw Pact countries into great allies. The social dynamics are actually pretty similar in this case, except religious nuts -- rather than commies -- have to be overthrown by the locals. I have far more faith in the Iranians controlling their long-term destiny than any other population in the neighborhood.

Send Poles, Czechs, Mongols, and Latvians and others to tell them that they (the Iranians) ultimately have got to do the dirty work themselves, but once that's done, they can expect the same welcome they (the Eastern Europeans) got.

Which reraises the question. How to punish a rogue, tyrannical government without harming its people?

Same way you normally do. Take out the leader caste and their republican guard using special ops forces, BUT LEAVE THE FREAKING ARMY AND POLICE FORCE INTACT.

The problem with waiting for the people to overthrow their leaders is the nuke factor. Leaders who are about to be lynched by their own people won't hesitate to launch everthing they have. They won't be worried about any reprisal.

"How to punish a rogue, tyrannical government without harming its people?"

By helping its people.

BDavis: "Leaders who are about to be lynched by their own people won't hesitate to launch everthing they have. They won't be worried about any reprisal."

The mechanics of "soft revolution" are unknown in the Muslim world, but I'm sure a path exists. In essence, the strategy is to soften an entire society to the point that liberalism infiltrates the power structure, and then a leader comes to power who will capitulate to an overwhelming (but peaceful) public uprising.

For instance, the fall of the Berlin Wall was basically a replay of the Hungarian revolt, but the Soviets let it happen this time because glasnost and perestroika (and the black market) had created enough change in the power structure to dilute the totalitarian state.

Change in Iran, I suspect, would have to be very carefully engineered over time, and might have more parallels to medieval Europe moving into the Renaissance than modern analogies. The way to do that would probably involve finding ways to influence the insular culture of the clerics, to (don't ask me how) introduce moderate mullahs into their religious hierarchy, and thus improve the odds of a moderate ayatollah. Obviously they wouldn't just abdicate religious authority, but they might be slower to react and harder to provoke--in other words, negligent. Meanwhile, the hardliners would become increasingly secularized, making it easier for the Iranian people to openly oppose them.

Western strategists had been going about things the wrong way, trying to liberalize the secular institutions, and now the religious side has cracked down and things are nearly back where they started. But if the Iranian theocracy can be softened, then it doesn't matter how hardline the civil government is--they wouldn't dare to invoke the wrath of moderate clerics with extreme crack downs.

To wit: Moderation is always the key to radical change, and radicalism the key to no change.

I think it would be better for libertarianism or repubilicanism to infiltrate the power structure. The fall of communism was generated more by the choices and freedom of free-market societies that oppressed people wanted to replace a failed and corrupt totalitarian state. Anything but liberalism. Because, without capitalism, liberalism couldn't exist. I'm running out of isms here and anarchyism just doesn't sound right and I don't want to try it anyway.

Bill your on the right track. The difference in the Soviet leaders and the Islamic Radical leaders is their end "want". The Communists wanted a world under their control, so we could all live in the workers paradise.

The Imams want the same thing, with the exception of the Imams being willing to die and go meet Allah sooner than later.

It is quite possible that Iranians are "avid fans of America: its culture, films, food, music, its open, free-wheeling society...", but hate the American government, hate all Jews and seek to destroy Israel, and favor their government acquiring nuclear weapons to do so.

They may like Americans, but they don't like us more than they like other Iranians. They love Allah more than democracy, or they would have ousted the mullahs long ago.

The government of a nation is an expression of the people who comprise the nation, and the notion that you can separate one from the other is a bridge to nowhere. No, the Iranian people are responsible for the actions of their government, and are complicit in the acts of terrorism it commits.

"The government of a nation is an expression of the people who comprise the nation, and the notion that you can separate one from the other is a bridge to nowhere. No, the Iranian people are responsible for the actions of their government, and are complicit in the acts of terrorism it commits."

There's a process of feedback, so it is meaningless to propose any point of "ultimate" responsibility in what is actually a cyclic continuum. Sometimes the elites progress faster than the general populace and exert a positive influence, while other times--like in America today--the powerful become degenerate and drag society down.

Could anyone seriously claim today's Americans, were they in the position of Iranians, would behave any differently? The right always takes things exactly as far as they can get away with, which in Iran just happens to be farther than here, and liberals and moderates would be proportionally more spineless in confronting them. Most Americans are not (yet) faced with physical danger for challenging the dictatorship we live under, and yet a substantial majority are cowed by the mere threat of negative publicity. So I really don't think very many people in this country are in any position to be judging the Iranian public. What we should be doing is examining the problem as a whole, both in its domestic and foreign aspects.

BS: "Most Americans are not (yet) faced with physical danger for challenging the dictatorship we live under"

I wish, I really truly wish, that you sir could experience living under a dictatorship. Then you might appreciate how utterly stupid you sound when you call the Bush administration a dictatorship.

How dare you belittle the condition that those people on this planet find themselves in who live under a real dictatorship? You sicken me; you are a vile contemptible liar.

"Most Americans are not (yet) faced with physical danger for challenging the dictatorship we live under"

Cecil, when I read that, it goes in like that but comes out "This writer is a genuine, bonafide retard".

Some things are so childish and stupid, they deserve no more cogent response than the fantasy arguments of a 3 year old would merit.

At least the 3 year old has the valid excuse of being 3.

We could invoke a the Heinleinian dictum that "there are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men," and tell 'em they can keep their nuke program if they overthrow the mullahs. ;^)

The Iranian government thinks it is safe from military action by the U.S. and a lot of our own people buy the 'over-committed' argument, as well.
But, Iraq is currently engaging only a small part of our Navy and Air Force. An embargo (selective blockade of shipping to and from Iran), backed by the threat of selective bombardment, would be an effective military action within our current capabilities. Incidently, for those who advise a containment stratgy, keeping our troops in Iraq is probably necessary to that end, just as our troops in West Germany were necessary to containing communism.

"I wish, I really truly wish, that you sir could experience living under a dictatorship."

And I wish more people understood what dictatorship means, so they wouldn't ignorantly assume freedom is heaving an infinite choice of consumer products and no choice of political leadership.

"Then you might appreciate how utterly stupid you sound when you call the Bush administration a dictatorship."

Maybe if you knew anything about the Weimar Republic, the Florentine Republic, the Roman Republic, Athens, or any other circumstance in history where a (relatively) free society became a dictatorship, you would understand how moronic your statements are. Dictators are what they are because they are above the law, and the atrocities you're talking about FOLLOW from that, they do not cause it.

"How dare you belittle the condition that those people on this planet find themselves in who live under a real dictatorship?"

How dare you belittle their misery by trying to sabotage their sources of hope. Contributing to an existing state of tyranny is one thing; trying to make a republic founded on freedom into an authoritarian police state is a crime against humanity.

"You sicken me; you are a vile contemptible liar."

Poor benighted fool. Maybe you can be the next Republican dictator's court jester.

Pesky facts to the contrary be dammned, you aren't going to convince Brian the Sun really sets in the west. You can't argue with a lunatic.

"You can't argue with a lunatic."

Agreed.