The Middle East is no stranger to doom and gloom. The most enduring conflict of the past century, between Israelis and Palestinians, drags on drearily today. The first wars of the 21st century have also unfolded there, in Afghanistan, Iraq, western Sudan and Lebanon. This being so, the West has a long history of espying new spectres in the region. In the 1950s and 1960s it was Nasser, Egypt's passionate pan-Arabist leader. In the 1970s it was Palestinian terrorism; in the 1980s Khomeini's Islamic revolution; since the turn of the century, al-Qaeda-style mayhem; and now again revolutionary Iran, newly expansionary and perhaps, some day, armed with nukes.
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