Yet more cut and paste this morning but I have to say that I have always like John Simpson since he liberated Kabul for the BBC on live TV, racing ahead of the troops, down the road freed by the Northern Alliance, caught in the moment, giddy like a child. He had to say sorry. This article he has written about Iran is something of a decent primer on where we are at and how we got there:

On 9 January 1979, a couple of weeks before his triumphant return to Iran, I interviewed Ayatollah Khomeini at his base in exile outside Paris. In the interview, Khomeini sketched out Iran's entire future: the eradication of the monarchy, universal suffrage and the ban on "corrupt" Western influences..."We intend to reject a relationship which makes us dependent on other countries," he said.