And if you thought that the US versus the Shiites and Sunnis is bad ...

The unstoppable Benjamin versus the immovable Mahmoud

Youch! If you thought that the pre-Armageddon ongoing in Iraq is bad, wait till Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clash.

As of yesterday, Israel's opposition leader (former Prime Minister and likely next "Commander-in-Chief") is calling for the the president of Iran to be brought to trial in an international court. Netanyahu says he and his compadres are trying to bring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to trial for incitement to genocide. Netanyahu said Ahmadinejad is an international war criminal because he has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." True enough.

As if to accent Netanyahu's concerns, Iran conducted missile tests yesterday as its leadership escalated its warnings of a possible military confrontation with both Israel and the United States. In another show of defiance, Tehran said Monday it had barred 38 U.N. nuclear inspectors from entering the country. This was obviously in retaliation for the U.N. Security Council resolution in December imposing sanctions on Iran.

The drumbeat I hear suggests that Iran does not intend to back down in its standoff with Israel and the West. Iran's leaders have warned of the possibility of a U.S. attack since President Bush announced Jan. 9 the deployment of a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf region, a move U.S. officials have said is a show of strength directed at Iran.

And as for Israel? Well, again I ask ... just how many nukes does Israel have in its arsenal anyway?

What began yesterday in Iran were five days of maneuvers near the northern city of Garmsar, about 60 miles southeast of Tehran. The military tested its Zalzal-1 and Fajr-5 missiles, and God-only-knows what else. The Zalzal-1, able to carry a 1,200-pound payload, has a range of 200 miles. That would put Iraq, U.S. bases in the gulf, and yes ... some mighty important oil fields ... in its range. The Fajr-5, with a 1,800-pound payload, has a range of only 35 miles.

Neither of these missiles could reach Israel, but Iran has other missiles that can.

And the USS Stennis continues to head toward the gulf, joining the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in a beefed-up U.S. military presence. The Stennis is expected to arrive in late February.

Further, the United States is deploying Patriot missiles (remember President Bush's mention of them in his "surge" speech a week or so ago?) and nuclear submarines to the Persian Gulf and F-16 fighter planes to one of my old haunts, the Incirlik airbase in Turkey.

And this evening's speech (the "State of the Union") by Mr. Bush added fuel to the fire, I think.

Iran is next, folks; it's only a question of whether our second aircraft carrier reaches the region before Israel's nukes reach Tehran. The only thing missing in this arena containing Benjamin Netanyahu, George Bush and Mohmoud Ahmadinejad is the late Saddam Hussein ... who would have been the most predictable of the lot!