Another restive ethnic group in Iran is making demands for culture and autonomy felt—and meeting with harsh repression. Following the Arabs of Khuzestan and the Kurds of Kordestan, now the Azeris—who, like the Kurds, had a short-lived independent state under Soviet protection in northern Iran during World War II. Note the irony that the riots were sparked by an offensive anti-Azeri cartoon that appeared in the Iranian press! From IranMania, May 24:

A statement from the New York-based Campaign for Peace and Democracy:

Just as it did before its invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration is manufacturing a climate of fear in order to prepare public opinion for another act of aggression -- this time against Iran. Three years ago it was the specter of Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction; today it's the threat of a possible Iranian nuclear bomb. Washington's immediate goal is to get the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran and, in all probability, to justify a military attack on Tehran's nuclear facilities -- a job that may be outsourced to Israel. The White House even insists on keeping the catastrophic "nuclear option" on the table -- that is, using tactical nuclear weapons to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, many of which are located in or near civilian population centers. Although a full-scale invasion of Iran is highly unlikely at the moment, there can be little doubt that the neoconservatives in the Bush administration have a grand strategy that includes, eventually, "regime change" in Tehran as a way of further enlarging U.S. imperial power.

This one is really funny. The ultra-conservative hyper-interventionist Islamophobes at the oddly named Human Events managed to score an interview with Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran and pretender to the throne. But this self-promoting monarchist restorationist, it turns out, is insufficiently bellicose and reactionary for the likes of his interviewers! They keep trying to goad him into supporting military action, and he (to his credit!) won't take the bait. Who'd have thought it would come to this—the scion of the Shah is more progressive (at least in word) than either the ruling mullahs or the beltway neocons who seek to overthrow them!

The vote for secession in Montenegro is being posed as the final chapter in the disintegration of Yugoslavia that began in 1990 with Slovenia's vote for seccession. Technically, "Yugoslavia" ceased to exist in 2003 when what was left of it was formally renamed "Serbia and Montenegro." But the salient point that most of the Western media is overlooking is the implications of Montenegro's secession for neighboring Kosova. Ironically, the destabilization of Yugoslavia began with the crisis over Kosova, which lost its constitutional autonomy in the first wave of Serb ethno-nationalism in 1989. Subsequent protests there were put down in a wave of repression. This was the first blow to the Yugoslav federal system, and led directly to the subsequent secessions. Yet Kosova's own status was never determined. It remains a de facto NATO protectorate while still officially part of Serbia. The Albanian majority there would like to formally secede; the Serb minority wants reunion with Serbia. The West has posed as the protector of the Albanians, but (as we have argued before) the actual motives in the NATO intervention were more likely to contain Albanian national apsirations in Kosova and head off the emergence of a new Muslim-led state in Europe. This is slyly (if unintentionally) revealed by the Western media's universal use of the Serbian spelling "Kosovo" instead of the Albanian "Kosova" to denote the province which is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian.

Remember, if you're not with us you're with the terrorists. From the Newark Star-Ledger, May 21:

Family waits for answers in hit-run
Memorial grows for siblings killed in Roselle

By yesterday afternoon, the curbside memorial along St. Georges Avenue had grown thick with dozens of stuffed animals, fresh red roses, flickering candles and silvery balloons twisting in the wind.

Dubious reports circulate that a bill pending in Iran would force Jews and other religious minorties to wear identifying insignia—in an obvious echo of Nazi Germany. Predictably, the Iranian regime is calling the allegations a Jewish conspiracy. From the Financial Times:

Iranian officials and politicians have strongly condemned a Canadian newspaper report alleging that Iran had passed a law requiring Jews to wear yellow badges on their clothes.

More arrests of Syrian opposition activists, and it appears some of them are being roughed up. From Lebanon's Daily Star, May 20:

BEIRUT: A prominent Syrian human rights lawyer who was arrested this week is being subject to beatings, his brother said Friday, even as the European Union condemned Syria's latest crackdown on dissidents.

Israel is continuing "targetted assassinations" in supposedly unoccupied Gaza. But internecine Palestinian violence, alas, now seems equally efficient in killing off the Palestinian leadership.

An Israeli missile strike on a car in Gaza City May 20 killed a top Islamic Jihad commander, Mohammed Dahdouh. A Palestinian woman, Hanan Aman, her 4-year-old son Mohanad and a female relative Naima Aman were also killed in the attack, and three others wounded. (Al-Bawaba, May 20)