The best-case scenario for the Bush administration in Iraq now is a modicum of stability under a Shi'ite-dominated regime more loyal to Tehran than Washington. In the January 2005 elections, voters trounced the US proxies, the secular Shi'ites of Iyad Allawi's CIA-groomed Iraqi National Accord, in favor of the Tehran-backed radical Shi'ites of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. So "regime change" in Iran is now necessary for the US to maintain effective control over Iraq as well. But how, given that Bush has already got his hands more than full with an increasingly unpopular quagmire? The answer is obvious: US imperialism's regional pit-bull, Israel. From the Jerusalem Post, Nov. 30:

According to the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran radio, Nov. 4, the supreme Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i appeared to distance himself from the statement of hardline Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad that Israel should be "wiped off the map." Khamenei said: "neither throwing Jews into the sea nor setting the Palestinian territory on fire is in accordance with our Islamic principles."

On Oct. 8, Maryam Namazie of the Organization of Women's Liberation in Iran (OWLI) , was awarded the National Secular Society's first Irwin Prize for "Secularist of the Year" in London . The £5,000 annual prize, sponsored by NSS member Dr. Michael Irwin, was presented by Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee at a lunch at London's Montcalm Hotel. The event also featured cabaret from stand-up comedian Stewart Lee, who is co-author of the controversial "Jerry Springer — the Opera," considered blasphemous by fundamentalist Christians.

This profile of Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, in the Sept. 24 New York Times (online at Iran Focus) is a skillful piece of subtle obfuscation. It notes (largely in the past tense) the ties between the National Council of Resistance and the Mujahedeen Khalq (MEK) without stating explicitly that the latter is the armed wing of the former. It also states that Mujahedeen Khalq "has been labeled a terrorist organization" by "the West" without stating explicitly that it is on the US State Department's list of "foreign terrorist organizations." It notes that Mujahedeen Khalq received shelter in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but says nothing about its current status in Iraq under the US occupation. The group has played into the US strategy of portraying the Iranian regime as bent on procuring nuclear weapons, but its past suggests it would serve as an unreliable client for Washington at best...

Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control and publisher of IranWatch.org, has the lead op-ed in the Aug. 23 New York Times, "Don't Underestimate the Mullahs," warning that Iran could be much closer to having The Bomb than is commonly assumed:

Violent clashes between Kurds and police erupted in the north Syrian town of Ein al-Arab Aug. 16, according to the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in Syria (AOHRS). The organization said the violence flared after police halted a march in support of a banned separatist group, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Cars were burned, and stones hurled at police who responded by firing tear gas and making a number of arrests.

President Bush refuses to rule out military action in response to Iran's renewed nuclear operations. "As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country," he told Israel's Channel One TV from his ranch in Crawford, TX, Aug. 13. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder immediately responded at an election rally in Hanover that same day that the threat of force was not acceptable. "Let's take the military option off the table," Schroeder said. "We have seen it doesn't work." (Reuters, Aug. 13, via TruthOut)

It has gone largely unnoticed in all the coverage of Iran's resumed nuclear fuel enrichment operations, but an official statement issued by the Islamic republic at the emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna Aug. 9 noted that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons.