Coming soon: A Sunni bomb.

Just in case Congress, Standard and Poors, the markets and Michele Bachmann aren’t keeping your internal anguish meter at maximum reading today, I offer you a truly frightening prospect: Iran gets the Bomb — and Saudi Arabia gets one, too. It is, unfortunately, a very likely prospect. Pervez Hoodbhoy, probably the best known physicist in Pakistan, explains why in a fascinating piece “What Next: A Sunni bomb?”  It’s a scary tale that, like so many emanating nowadays from the Middle East, revolves around the Sunni-Shia division in the Muslim world and the days of Charlie Wilson’s war to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The bottom line: Shia-led Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia are vying for leadership of the Middle East. If Iran gets the bomb (which it almost certainly will), Saudi Arabia will almost certainly follow — with technical help from Sunni-led Pakistan, an exceeding close Saudi ally ever since the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan worked together to fund al Qaeda’s efforts against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Sweet dreams.