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Of course, educated folk will insist they have long been familiar with Iran's human face. They will point to art exhibitions such as Made in Iran, now in London, or Iran Inside Out in New York, movies including the new Shirin and the much-admired Persepolis, or memoirs such as Reading Lolita in Tehran. What's different about the last few weeks, however, is that this exposure to the complexity, variety and sheer humanness of Iran's people has become mainstream. This could cut both ways. Some Europeans and Americans might feel such empathy for the green revolutionaries that they join the neocon call and demand their governments act to rescue the Iranians from tyranny. But it's more likely that many would recoil from a shock and awe bombardment that would kill thousands of the very people for whom they now have a strong affinity. There was, alas, too little feeling for the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan: they were always faceless, even in death.

Jonathan Freedland makes a good point in today's Guardian. He must be right that the more familar we are with any foreign culture, the more we feel we know another people, the less likely we are to consent to military action against them. The media and the social psychology of our relationship to it has influenced the politics of war profoundly, at least since Vietnam: any military intervention will damage the politician who orders it unless it is short and overwhelmingly successful, with low casualties on both sides and relatively containable media coverage - the Falklands war being the best example - as well as being obviously justified. And our feelings about the country we are in conflict with must be a major factor in our acceptance of war in this media-driven age. The web may now have added a further layer.

Something bothers me, though. Obviously Iranians do not hate Jews or America, and do not want to dominate their region using a nuclear threat. But the people with power in Iran do hate Jews - enough to wish Israel away and to take state action in support of that wish, by arming Hezbollah, spreading traditional myths about a Jewish plot to control the world and denying or at least wanting to "revise" the Holocaust. Government-sponsored demonstrations involve crowds chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". They still call America "the Big Satan". And they still pursue nuclear weapons.

I support Barack Obama's reaching out to Islamic opinion and to Iran in particular - I am not wishing for conflict. Some people imagine Iranian policy is entirely a result of George Bush or the West's nastiness, and think all we need to do is smile to make everything right. But the question many people are reluctant to face is what Obama and countries like Britain should do if Iran's repressive regime carries on with its aggressive ambitions regardless, just as it has kept Ahemedinejad in power regardless of the wishes of the Iranians we've come to admire. Obama may in time have no option but to threaten force, or support Israeli force, against Iran. It's up to the mullahs.