Iran has 3,300 miles of land bordering seven countries. By comparison, our southern border (the one we can't seem to control) extends 2,000 miles and only has Mexico on the other side. And it seems that we are doing everything we can to surround Iran.

We've invaded Iraq and installed about 150,000 troops. Iran's border with Iraq is its longest with a single country, about 1,000 miles. 1,200 miles of its eastern border is split between Afghanistan, where we have another 25,000 troops, and Pakistan, allegedly our strongest ally in the region and the beneficiary of billions of foreign-aid dollars. Of course, Iran also has a 1,500-mile coastline on the Persian Gulf—and guess whose warships now float menacingly along those waters.

How would we feel if China were to invade Mexico and Canada, establish permanent bases in each, and line up submarines a few miles past the Statue of Liberty? They would issue no threats to us. They would just sit there and wait. That's where we are today with Iran—baiting them, waiting for them to give us an excuse.

Just as we waited in 1915 when the Lusitania sank, leading us into WWI. Just as we waited in 1964 when Vietnam allegedly attacked two American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, leading us into the Vietnam War. Both events were contrived or at least facilitated to bolster public support for wars.

A few weeks ago, an exaggerated encounter with some Iranian speedboats was almost used as an excuse to attack a country whose size and population is larger than the total of Texas, California, and all of New England.

The real question is: How does Turkmenistan fit in? Yes, Turkmenistan. The former part of the Soviet Union is essentially a dictatorship that shares a critical 600-mile border on Iran's northern end. And of course you haven't heard anything about it—yet.

American troops have Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, surrounded on the west, the east, and the south. But Turkmenistan provides the north. Turkey does share a 300-mile border on Iran's northwest, but Turkey is far more easily defensible.

The combination of Turkey, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq comprises about 90 percent of the land bordering Iran.

Turkmenistan has, or at least had, strong trading relationships with Iran and Afghanistan. Of course, that was before they saw the writing on the wall that we are all still too afraid to see—that Iran is in danger.

Curiously, two years after we invaded Iraq, Turkmenistan partially withdrew from the Commonwealth of Independent States, the federation of former Soviet republics. Its leaders claim it wanted to follow a policy of permanent neutrality. Can they see what we dare not admit: that a war against Iran is a war against Russia? That it begets a global war?

The Turkmens are still intricately tied in with Russia as they sell about two-thirds of their gas through Gazprom. But would they become an American ally? What would it cost? And have we already started negotiating with them?

Perhaps we have. Turkmenistan is pondering building expensive pipelines underneath the Caspian Sea to have a better gateway to Europe and the rest of the West, bypassing Gazprom. And for a country that hasn't had its leader visit the United States in ten years, isn't it a little surprising the first such visit came just three months ago?

Is Turkmenistan playing Russia and America off of each other to get the highest bid for its important border with Iran?

Start keeping an eye out for Turkmenistan. Once you start hearing it on the news, that will mean we have "won" the bidding. The losers will be our civil liberties, our safety, our earnings, the value of our dollar, and peace.