[andyfox]

"Soviet military readiness and the political will to use it were much greater later during the cold war."

Maybe. But so was our willingness to exaggerate it, witness John Kennedy's rising to the presidency on the wings of a non-existent "missile gap," and Ronald Reagan's claims for twenty-five years that we were losing the Cold War and that Armageddon was fast approaching.

That Iran wishes to see regimes to its liking spread to other countries is important. Accurately assessing what it is doing to bring this about is also important. Ignoring other causes of bad things in the world, as we often did during the Cold War, can lead to tragedy.