Many thanks for all of this. I actually have an "old-folks" pass for the national parks that gets all of us in free. I bought it, I think, when I hit 60.

Many thanks for the suggestions. Keep'em coming.

Zafar, you are right about the nuclear ambitions. Even the Shah entertained them. The alternative to the theocracy is nationalism -- and, in his own strange way, Ahmadinejad stood for that. He was not a mullah. He resented their rule, and he made no bones about his stance.

In Iran, there are wheels within wheels, and the faction-fighting within the regime is extremely bitter. The fact that there are contested elections causes these divisions to spill over into public disputation. Some day -- and that day will come when we least expect it -- the old clerical order will suddenly vanish.

It is worth adding that many of the Ayatollahs and mullahs in the Shiite world look upon Khomeini as a heretic. There is no tradition with Shiism of clerical rule.

True. But what is interesting is that Rouhani chose to make an appeal to the themes sounded by the green movement. That, in a way, is what happened in June, 2009. The candidates that time were vetted in the same fashion. They were all insiders. But one of them decided to make the sort of appeal that Rouhani made this time. There is a dynamic to contested elections featuring public debates. It is that which interests me. It yields an unfolding logic, which points to a post-Islamic political order.

Thanks for this. Most of it I had a pretty good inkling of. The one piece of information that I did not know was that Rouhani had been very close to Rafsanjani and Khatami.

Of significance, I believe, is the size of the vote he received. Khamenei calls the shots, but he cannot fully ignore public opinion, and these elections provide an occasion for the expression of public opinion. Rouhani's appeal to the green movement may in some measure bind him.

The Iranians are different. They have a pre-Islamic culture of which they are proud. Many Iranians are highly educated, and there is a very large, sophisticated middle class. Furthermore, unlike, say, the Egyptians, they have lived under a religious dictatorship that they deeply resent. When the counter-revolution comes (and it may be like perestroika in the Soviet Union), what will emerge will look something like Restoration England (compared with Cromwellian England). Asceticism will be followed by libertinism.

I do not know how long it will take, but the place nearly came apart in 2009 when the election was stolen. You underestimate the influence of institutions and practices on outcomes. Genuine public debate shapes popular expectations, and high offices to which one has to be elected in genuine contests puff up the officeholders. Their pride is our hope.

Rubin is probably right. But give a man who seems a puppet a high office, and he may surprise you. What I was writing about was not the men, but the influence of institutions. They shape opinion and expectations, and they often shape those who hold office under them.

The reform faction last time was also led by mullahs. Among the Ayatollahs, Khomeinei was a man of great respect. Khamenei is not. He is a hack, and he is at odds with Qom.

Bless you for addressing this courageously, Richard. I have only one quibble. You say that the abuses "take place within parts of the government that are not organized to control against these risks." But, in truth, the IRS is supposed to be organized to control against such risks.

It does not help that James Clapper has no idea whom he works for -- Barack Obama, or the American people. He lied to Congress about the scope of NSA surveillance just as he lies to the American people with regard to what happened in Benghazi.

In the end, the problem is that we have an administration of scoundrels. No one has enough self-respect to be able to tell Obama: "No, I will not lie for you!" Let's face it. When it came to Benghazi, even David Petraeus (initially) blinked. Scoundrels they are; time servers. Every last one of them.

Very interesting. This makes sense.

To deal with this problem, if it is as serious as I suspect it is, would require a battle royal. Benedict was old, tired, and not at all well. He knew that it was beyond his capacity. Moreover, Benedict seems to have pondered the question of resignation more or less from the start. He had seen incapacitated Popes. He knew what could happen in such a period, and he wanted to set an example. A good man, I think, who knew his limits.

All true. But the scale and scope of it became much worse in the second half of the twentieth century. Take a look at my earlier post.

Take a look at the earlier post. There is powerful evidence that the trouble began after World War II and that the seminaries were a problem already in the late 1950s. The sexual revolution just made things worse.

Amen. At least, now, there is an acknowledgement that the rot goes all the way to the Curia.

Wonderful.