This idea has been kicking around in my head for weeks, but nobody else (that I've seen) has articulated it and this leader from the Guardian kicked me off the to-Slog or not-to-Slog fence:

Gaddafi told US and Nato are weighing up a raft of military options, including arming the rebel forces

Obama responded meekly to the Iranian uprisings (and make no mistake, these are the most important uprisings—from a strategic perspective—in the region), and he should have. At least according to Darya, our correspondent in the uprising in Tehran, who says that too much support from the US could be easily parlayed by the regime to paint the uprising as one of "foreign influence" rather than indigenous dissatisfaction.

And in a regime that has relied on paranoia of foreign influence for so long (and not entirely without reason—the US has fucked up again and again when it comes to meddling in Iranian affairs), that might kill the uprising.

So Obama and NATO giving hell to the Libyan regime is a proxy warning. Gaddafi's behavior is so egregiously insane that foreign powers have an excuse to meddle. But it's also a warning to Iran: if the US and NATO get some Arab-street-cred for fucking up Gaddafi's game, that gives them a little more traction to support the Iranian uprising.

And the next time Iran unleashes its goons against protesters, look for pundits from Al Jazeera to Fox News to compare Mahmoud "AJ" Ahmadinejad to Gaddafi.

Because that will give them a new leverage they didn't have until a few weeks ago.