i always find rankings like these to be both fascinating and completely suspect. it's hard to argue that somalia or zimbabwe aren't basket cases and the ones listed as "most stable" clearly are pretty stable places.
but, for example, is iran really more stable than bhutan and less stable than georgia? bhutan? seriously? has there ever been serious strife there? and georgia has two regions that are outside of the government's control, with a much larger neighbor regularly threatening another invasion. as bad and as unstable as iran is right now, i don't think it's as bad as georgia. FP may have tallied the numbers, but i don't know if that methodology is really any better than my own gut.
