On Iran

I think it would be worth a try to finance insurrection by Iran's powerful non-Persian minorities, though I doubt it would work. Our real options, I suspect, are an air war with a minor dilatory effect on their nuke program or a ground war that dismantles it (and perhaps installs a proper regime)--to make things simple we should also break up the country on ethnic lines, to achieve stability and an American exit, and to weaken post-war Iran. The other road is to appease our way into a nuclear arms race among the Middle Eastern nations. 

The CIA Factbook says there are 15 million Azeris, 8 million Kurds, and 5 million other non-Persians in Iran. The total population is 78 million. Without the Kurds and Azeris it would be 55 million. If the Kurds in Iran, Iraq and Syria united, the new Kurdistan would contain about 15 million, a respectable force, especially given their substantial oil resources. There are 15 million more Kurds in Turkey, who might also break away in future. New Kurdistan's main weakness is a lack of access to the ocean if the new state's borders are set according to current population distributions. And the new Azerbaijan would have 24 million, also with oil. Both of these new nations ought to be sustainable and would weaken Iran and Iraq. The Turks derive no benefit beyond pride from controlling part of Kurdistan. They would be spared the expense of borders with Iran and Iraq, and the expense of fighting the endless Kurdish insurgency. Unfortunately, on this plan, the Iranians would not lose any significant part of their oil and gas reserves.