You know, whenever people start talking about Iran, I’m reminded of my friend Reeza (sp). He was my roommate for a little over a year before I moved to be closer to work. He was Iranian, a former tank commander, in fact. But he was in the regular Iranian army, which has no Western counterpart, but he, as the commander of a half-dozen tanks, was paid less than a private in the elite guard.

We happened to be sharing a house when the US invaded Iraq, and I remember sitting with him watching news of the invasion on the BBC. I remember being with him when they first showed the now-famous footage of the Saddam statue being pulled to the ground. I was surprised, to say the least, at his reaction. He leapt from his chair, fist held triumphantly in the air and shouted, “YES! Now, on to Tehran!”

I was a bit confused. I’d never seen anyone advocating the invasion of their own homeland before. I asked him, wouldn’t many of his friends, still in the Iranian regular forces, die if the US were to invade. “Yes,” he told me. “And it is a sadness. But it is for the good.”