The USA has meddled too long in Cuban affairs and should learn that a "hands off" policy was never more appropriate that at present. Now is the opportunity for statemanship and magnanimity by closing Quantanamo and handing it back to its rightful owners. This could open the floodgates of goodwill that exists towards the American people within the great mass of Cubans.

Iran fragile? Compared to what country? Unlike its dynastic neighbors, Iran's post 1979 elite has produced a succession of leaders and cabinets. One party states can last a long time.

No oil dependent country generates the real jobs it needs. Oil makes it cheaper to import everything. The service sector jobs that do proliferate are highly derivative of state oil money and marginally productive. How is Iran's youth bulge any different from that in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Eqypt, Indonesia, Mexico, or Venezuela?

Ah, Venezuela. Mr. Naim's nemesis, Hugo Chávez, gets along quite well with Iran. Could it be that his real concern is that Iran could prove to be a too stable buddy of the populist leader of his former homeland? Imagine Ahmadinejad and Chávez revelling in anti-US speeches and assorted collusions.

This would be a prickly prospect not because Iran is unstable, but because its regime is likely to last a long time and contribute to Chávez longevity too.

Yet Iran is not going to go away. Rather than repeat the chants and hype that led to the soured war in Iraq, and would lead to a disatrous war with Iran, it would be nice to devise an intelligent way to deal with it.

The implicit assumption is that, if Iran goes nuclear, its strategic opponents will balance against it. Once Iran goes nuclear, however, it will be too late. The highly unstable balancing act described above is a negative scenario, one that nuclear talks are trying to prevent. It is not, as presented, a solution.