Iran Attack Imminent?

Reza Aslan is, as many of you know, a soft-spoken, highly intelligent guy, and one of the country's leading experts on Iran (he was born there, but is fully Americanized). He explains Iranian issues - and issues in Moslem world in general - with a refreshingly non-strident tone. Rational. Reasonable. Good-humored (listen to this superbly insightful radio interview to get the idea).

That's why I'm unnerved that he sounds so alarmed about the possibility of an impending attack on Iran. In that link, he urges, with uncommon intensity, immediate contribution to a group called the NIAC, which is pushing for this attack not to happen. Aslan says, convincingly, "we must act now and not wait for war to start to then try and stop it. We must prevent it."

Aslan is a grounded pragmatist, and I trust his assessment that the NIAC are the right guys (they've been working for Democracy and human rights in Iran, and with Jewish-American and peace groups to avoid US-Iran war). Read their blog to see where they're coming from. And please consider donating, and upping your donation amount to the pain point. As with the Iraq invasion, we've been prepared for this scenario so thoroughly that it's easy to assume it won't actually happen. But elsewhere in the world, people share Aslan's fevered fear of the horrendous mistake that may be about to be made. A Bahranian friend just told me the following:

If the US or Israel bombs Iran, we (Bahrain) are going to be the 2nd to suffer (after Iran, obviously.) First thing Iran will do is bomb the U.S base here, to make sure the U.S doesn't use it to attack (which is basically why they're here in the first place.) We are so small as a country that one bomb will make us sink, literally. Anyways - we are freaking out, in a few years you can bet that we'll be as bad as present-day Iraq. On one hand Iran is funding terrorist attacks in this country, and militant organizations. On the other hand we have the USA who, also, couldn't care less about our lives and is just using this place as a strategic location. We don't trust anyone and are just kind of waiting to see what happens.

God forbid, if anything does in fact happen - this will involve way more than just the USA, Israel and Iran - there's also Syria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, other than Bahrain. I imagine Turkey will act upon its threats to Israel too and do something. We're basically fucked.