Scholar and Lebanon expert Augustus Richard Norton recently took time out for a lengthy e-mail interview with the Los Angeles Times about the confusing conflict in Lebanon.
 Lebanon watchers have been worried for some time that the current political stalemate between the Western-leaning government and the Iranian-backed opposition could explode and plunge the country into civil war.
"While many Lebanese adults have a living memory of the 15-year civil war that ended in 1990, many shabaab or 'young bloods' on all sides have been rearing for a fight," wrote Norton. "On several occasions dangerous clashes emerged and the country seems to have been close to the brink, and then wiser heads prevailed on all sides."
Norton knows Lebanon well. He served as a peacekeeper in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) during the 1980s and wrote the groundbreaking book "Amal and the Shi'a" in 1987.
Now a professor of international relations and anthropology at Boston University, he recently published the timely "Hezbollah: A Short History," described by Publisher's Weekly as a "remarkably thorough, articulate portrait" and by the Washington Post as a "lucid primer" on the group.
He's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was an advisor to the Iraq Study Group in 2006.
Below is the interview.
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President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today said he'd be delighted to meet with the president of the United States.
Just not with George W. Bush, whose term runs out in eight months.
"Except for the Zionist regime [i.e., Israel], we are ready to negotiate with any country," he told reporters in one of his infamous rambling news conferences today: "Before I said I was ready to have a debate with President Bush. Now I say I am ready to hold a debate with the U.S. presidential candidate before large audiences of the world, because Bush is the outgoing president and no longer relevant."
The press-friendly president of an increasingly press-unfriendly country also took on questions ranging from Iran's controversial nuclear program to the price of food in the capital.
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Some Lebanese and U.S. officials blamed Iran, the main patron and backer of the Shiite militia Hezbollah for the current unrest in Lebanon.
Indeed, Iranians are closely watching events unfolding in Lebanon and rooting for their allies.
But though Hezbollah might have discreetly sought its backers' OK before taking over West Beirut, the move came as a shock to most Iranians. One team of reporters from Iran's official state-controlled broadcaster only managed to make it across the Syrian border and into the country on Friday night, well after the takeover.
In Tehran on Sunday, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini called for "national unity" in Lebanon and blamed the troubles there on Israel and the U.S. "We have always warned that the US and Zionist regime and their media are creating the crisis in Lebanon," he told reporters.
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Iran is now officially admitting that a deadly April 12 explosion at a mosque in southern Iran was a bomb attack and not an accident caused by leftover war props.
On Thursday, Iranian Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told reporters that authorities had arrested six men in connection with the bombing, which killed 14 and injured nearly 200. He blamed London and Washington for the attack: The main suspect who had a direct role in the bombing had been arrested armed in one of northern cities on Wednesday afternoon as he was trying to escape from the country. The terrorist group has some links with the United States and Britain and Iran's foreign ministry had notified the countries about their terrorist operations.
Both the United States and Iran accuse each other of backing proxy fighters to pressure each other in a decades-long rivalry. The United States and Britain accuse Iranians of arming and training militant groups wreaking havoc on Iraq. Tehran accuses the United States and its allies of backing Kurdish, Arab and Baluchi separatist groups and militants fighting the Iranian government.
On Thursday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini ripped into a London appeal court's decision to remove the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, or the MKO, from the United Kingdom's list of terrorist organizations. The Iranian government despises the MKO, a cult-like Marxist-Islamist group based in Iraq and led by a woman named Maryam Rajavi.
Hosseini called the verdict (which the British government opposed) a sign of double standards by Britain. "Vast terrorist acts of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization against Iran's people and officials are clear, and the U.K., by removing their name from the list of terrorist groups, is helping promotion of terrorism and violence," he said.
-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
There was something interesting missing from Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner's introductory remarks to journalists at his regular news briefing in Baghdad on Wednesday: the word "Iran," or any form of it. It was especially striking as Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman here, announced the extraordinary list of weapons and munitions that have been uncovered in recent weeks since fighting erupted between Iraqi and U.S. security forces and Shiite militiamen.
 Among other things, Bergner cited 20,000 "items of ammunition, explosives and weapons" reported by Iraqi forces in the central city of Karbala; an additional Karbala cache containing 570 explosive devices, nine mortars, four anti-aircraft missiles, and 45 RPGs; and in the southern city of Basra alone, 39 mortar tubes, 1,800 mortars and artillery rounds, 600 rockets, and 387 roadside bombs. Read his remarks here.
Not once did Bergner point the finger at Iran for any of these weapons and munitions, which is a striking change from just a couple of weeks ago when U.S. military officials here and at the Pentagon were saying that caches found in Basra in particular had revealed Iranian-made arms manufactured as recently as this year. They say the majority of rockets being fired at U.S. bases, including Baghdad's Green Zone, are launched by militiamen receiving training, arms and other aid from Iran.
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No need to dig deep to find signs of Iranian gloating over America's struggles in the Middle East.
 This week Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran's top religious and military authority, voiced confidence that Iran is winning a regional conflict against the United States and its allies.
During a visit to the city of Kazeroun in southern Iran, Khamenei voiced an opinion shared by many Iranian officials.
He called on all walks of Iranian society to unify in order to preserve "national interests and create a role-model Islamic society for the world."
Good times are at hand for Iran, he said:
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For nearly three decades, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite Muslim families and Washington’s closest partner in the Iraqi government has maintained strong ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
 Abdelaziz Hakim, leader of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, or SIIC, and a relatively moderate Shiite leader who is a key player in his country, plays a tricky balancing act, maintaining cordial ties with both the U.S. and Iran at a time of unprecedented international tension between the two longtime rivals.
The troubles came to a boil this weekend as the Iraqi government dispatched a team to Tehran to discuss U.S. allegations that Iran is smuggling weapons to Iraqi militants.
One of Hakim’s sons, Mohsen Hakim, oversees his party’s downtown Tehran office. Over tea and fruit Saturday, the younger Hakim, 34, spoke for half an hour with the Los Angeles Times in an illuminating interview about the troubled relations among Iran, Iraq and the U.S. and how they roil the entire region, from Afghanistan to Lebanon.
"The Iraqi security issue is not separated from other issues in the Middle East," he said. "On the whole, security in the region is not divisible. If there is no security in Iraq , there is no security anywhere in the region. We look at the security of Iraq as a organic security package for the whole region."
The whole interview is transcribed below.
LOS ANGELES TIMES: What is SIIC’s attitude toward the accusations of increased Iranian involvement in violence in Iraq? MOHSEN HAKIM: In fact, SIIC as a member of Iraqi government shares whatever the government of [Prime Minister Nouri] Maliki says in that regard. Because the government is in charge of securing security and stability in Iraq.
LAT: But some officials in the Iraqi government claim that Iran is involved in Iraqi violence. HAKIM: Firstly, so far there is no official declaration about that from the Iraqi government. Secondly, the many problems between Iran and Iraq and between Iran and U.S. should be settled through consultation and negotiations. Nothing can be solved by openly and publicly accusing each other of interference.
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The stars of the Milky Way spread out across the sky behind Iran's snow-capped Damavand Mountain. The country's highest peak rises 18,598 feet from sea level. The image, taken by Iranian photographer and astronomer Babak Tafreshi, is NASA's astronomy picture of the day.
Here's a description of what you're looking at: In the sky to the left of Damavand's peak are the stars of the Big Dipper in Ursa Major. Pan to the right and your gaze will sweep across the arch of our Milky Way Galaxy above the Alborz Mountain Range bordering the Caspian Sea. Near the center of the panorama, recorded in the predawn hours of April 4th, bright stars Deneb and Altair lie close to the curve of the Milky Way, above the glow of the Haraz valley. Farther right, brilliant Jupiter dominates the sky near the stars, nebulae, and dark dust clouds toward the bulging galactic center. Finally, the horizon glow at the right edge, below bright yellowish giant star Antares, is from the city of Damavand, named for the legendary mountain peak.
Click here to see the whole image.
—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
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A war of accusations and name-calling has erupted between the U.S. and Hezbollah after the recent release of the State Department's annual report on terrorism in the world. First, the US report (summarized in the video above) claimed that the Lebanese Shiite militant group of being the "most technically capable terrorist group in the world." It accused Hezbollah of providing military and logistic support to insurgents in Iraq and militant groups in the Palestinian Territories, as well as Taliban fighters in Afghanistan:
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 By Noha El-Hennawy in Beirut
Carrying the preconceived baggage of many Arabs, I traveled to Lebanon: A beautiful country with a Westernized population and beaches flecked with bikinis not far from bars where men and women mingle freely. Reality, however, turned out to be more dizzying and complex. After a week of shuttling between the North, South, East and West of Lebanon, my Egyptian sensibilities realized that despite its small size, it’s hard to believe this exceptionally diverse land is actually one country.
EAST BEIRUT: In a nutshell, it is quiet, clean and cosmopolitan. You may think the country’s official language is French as you hardly hear the neighborhood’s Christian residents speak Arabic. Even houses are built and renovated according to European architecture. Blond women walk around in tight blouses showing cleavage; they seek posh malls and Western baubles. On weekends, nightclubs on the famous Gammayze Street are packed with young couples who cruise with hip-hop music thumping from luxurious cars. This is but one, intriguing window into Lebanon.
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 Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's April 22 warning to Iranians that the U.S. could "totally obliterate" their country if they "considered" attacking Israel sparked international outrage.
But now the New York senator has one-upped even President Bush. The former Texas governor kept a pretty low profile on the global scene as he ran for president in 2000. But candidate Clinton has managed to stir up an official international incident before even stepping into the White House.
Today came word that the Islamic Republic of Iran had filed a formal letter of complaint against the former first lady for her well-publicized comment, which came in response to a question on ABC News' "Good Morning America."
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By Saif Rasheed in Baghdad
Iraq and the United States accuse Iran of sending arms to Iraqi militants and offering them training, but there's one thing Iran is exporting that few can complain about: Barfab air coolers.
I recently spent two consecutive mornings wandering along Karada Out, the famous electronics market street in Baghdad, looking for some of these air coolers. It wasn't easy, because there are a lot of companies making knock-offs of the real thing.
Finally, I found a shop with the genuine item and bought three for my house at $175 each.
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No sex allowed. Not even consensual sex between a wife and husband.
That was the message this year before today's start of the Tehran International Book Fair.
The fair first sounded like a book lover's dream: 200,000 titles on an enticing variety of topics put on display for those with a voracious appetite for reading.
But fans of steamy romance novels were sorely disappointed.
Here's what Saffar Harandi, Iran's Mnister of Islamic Guidance and Culture, told reporters a few days ago:
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If the medium is the message, as the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan put it, the Iranians couldn't possibly mistake the recent communications by the United States.
On Tuesday, President Bush told reporters that the Israeli bombing of an alleged North Korean-designed nuclear facility in Syria was not just directed against Pyongyang and Damascus, but was also a not-so-subtle telegram to Tehran.
Answering a question about the sudden resurfacing of the Sept. 16 attack on the Syrian facility, Bush strongly suggested that the United States and Israel had Iran in mind when Syria was bombed:
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He is an Iranian Muslim who looks so much like a Hollywood or Renaissance image of Jesus Christ that the faithful sometimes make the sign of the cross when they see him.
Ahmad Soleimani-Nia has been playing Jesus for seven years, keeping his hair long and lightly dyed, his beard knotty and vibrant.
He is the star of "Jesus, the Spirit of God," a new film from Iran that depicts the man Christians believe to be the messiah and son of God as a tormented Judean prophet heralding the coming of Muhammad, the founder of the Muslim faith. Nia's Jesus is at once serene, devout, driven and passionate.
In real life, if there is a real life after a spiritual and artistic odyssey that is still not over, Nia lives in Tehran. He was once a soldier in the Iranian army and then a welder for — the irony is interesting in this Jesus story — his nation's Atomic Energy Agency, which the Bush administration accuses of pursuing nuclear weapons.
That may unsettle some American neo-cons, but perhaps not as much as the film itself, which suggests that Jesus wasn't crucified and never rose from the dead.
Check out the rest of the story in today's Los Angeles Times.
— Jeffrey Fleishman in Tehran
Photo: Ahmad Soleimani-Nia as Jesus. Credit: minbar.tatar.ru/rus/Messiah.htm
On Friday chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael G. Mullen delivered stern words against Iran, accusing it of continuing to supply weapons and training to Iraqi militants to target American troops despite promises not to do so.
Mullen's words carry weight. He's uniformed military, not some beltway ideologue.
Still, many in the U.S. and the world feel burned by the Bush administration's pre-war claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and support for Al Qaeda that turned out to be false.
Others believe the allegations that Iran is messing up U.S. plans in Iraq.
What do you think? Vote in the poll below.
—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo: An Iranian soldier wears a gas mask during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
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The barometer of tensions between Iran and the United States went up a notch or even two today as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael G. Mullen accused Iran of stepping up weapons and training to its surrogates in Iraq despite promises to stop doing so.
 Los Angeles Times Pentagon correspondent Julian E. Barnes is following the story from Washington:
...Mullen said there was not a massive infusion of weapons but said over time there had been "a consistent increase" in arms shipments. Speaking at a morning news conference, Mullen said weapons had been intercepted in Iraq that showed evidence of relatively recent manufacture in Iran...
Also today came word of another possible confrontation between U.S. forces and Iranians in the Persian Gulf. According to the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, an American contractor fired approaching speedboats that identified themselves as Iranian vessels. Iranians said no such incident took place.
Insiders say Mullen is no warmonger. They say Mullen is not eager to get America's overstretched military embroiled in a war with a country three times bigger than Iraq.
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A supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has sent a note in a response to an earlier post suggesting that the presidential candidate's statement vowing to "totally obliterate" Iran if it were to launch an attack on Israel was taken out of context.
Actually, what she said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America" was that she would "totally obliterate them" even if they merely "consider" launching an attack on Israel.
Here's a clip from the interview with ABC's Chris Cuomo: Below a transcript of the entire exchange:
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Better be careful what you say in the heat of a political campaign. It could have global repercussions.
 Presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's vow to "obliterate" Iran, presumably with nuclear weapons, if it attacked Israel on her watch was duly noted in the U.S.
[UPDATE: To see a video and full transcript of the comment, click here.]
Jaded American insiders shrugged off the remark as typical campaign season bluster, filed away with myriad other exaggerations and gaffes.
But it prompted shock overseas as well as headlines from Bulgaria to New Zealand.
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Al Qaeda struggles to show that it still has its fingers on the pulse of the world, even as it hides out in the rocky mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The latest presumptive audio recording by Al Qaeda's No. 2 seems to suggest that the Islamist organization is striving to stay relevant.
In the extensive two-hour message posted on the Internet Tuesday, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, particularly lashed out at the Iranians for their ambitions in Iraq and the Arab region, as well as their attempts to discredit the Sunni Islamist group.
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Try as it might, the U.S. has apparently failed again to convince its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf to promise to step in with their cash and credibility in support of the fledgling, Shiite-led Iraqi government.
In a visit to Bahrain on Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to convince oil-rich Persian Gulf nations to relieve Iraq of billions of dollars of debt, open embassies in the war-torn country and help counter Iran's growing influence.
She walked away empty-handed. Instead, Rice's latest visit to the region has prompted a fresh storm of criticism against U.S. policy in Iraq, which is the subject of a big conference in Kuwait today.
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If an Iranian woke up in America and glimpsed the front page of a newspaper, he'd be reminded of home: a teetering economy, a restless populace, a tough-talking leader.
This nation is fascinated by what it calls the Great Satan, and it is watching the U.S. primaries for signs of how it might benefit from crises similar to its own facing the next American president. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, this theocracy has clashed with Democratic and Republican administrations alike; it has endured international sanctions while practicing shadow diplomacy and brinkmanship.
Iranians know the new U.S. leader will inherit an overextended military in Iraq, a declining dollar, high oil prices and a sub-prime mortgage crisis that are straining the American economy. This scenario, analysts here suggest, may lead to a softer U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become widely admired for his harsh line against the Bush administration.
Click here to read more.
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Tehran
The Iranian government has officially and regularly decried former President Jimmy Carter since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
But it looks like some within official Iranian circles are willing to let bygones be bygones, especially now that Carter has defied the Bush administration by meeting with the Palestinian militant group and Iranian ally, Hamas.
Iran's animosity toward Carter stretches back decades. He was, after all, the U.S. commander in chief who toasted deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi months before a popular 1978 uprising against his rule, briefly offered the monarch sanctuary in America and dispatched an ill-fated rescue team to free American diplomats and embassy employees being held hostage in Iran.
But politics makes for strange bedfellows.
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The man in the mustard-colored blazer had a new haircut. It shined in the morning light as he stood near a strange, vulnerable collection of guys at the edge of a park, where murals of ayatollahs and martyrs floated above rooftops and gardeners lugged hoses to the sound of water fisch-fisch-fisching over cold green grass.
They asked God for courage to change what could be changed and wisdom enough to know what couldn't be undone. It seemed like a good prayer, and the man closed his eyes and joined in for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and tried to gather the part of himself that he had somehow lost years ago.
"I'm a lodger in a small room," Gholam Reza Akbarabadi said. "These men and I help each other. We talk about daily things -- like today, for example, I have temptation for alcohol and heroin. It's hard. I overcome it by talking. I've been clean four months and 27 days."
Click here to read the whole story.
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Tehran
Photo: Ali Shirazi goes to a park in Tehran every morning to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Credit: Newsha Tavakolian / Polaris
 The office of Iran's representative to the United Nations issued a rare statement Thursday condemning attempts by American officials to depict the Islamic Republic as a spoiler in Iraq.
The letter, dated April 17, was sent to media outlets.
It opens by decrying "the unabated continuation of the use of false pretexts by various senior officials of the United States to make unfounded allegations against the Islamic Republic of Iran with regard to Iraq.
That's a reference to recent congressional appearances by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the top U.S. military and political officials in Baghdad, as well as statements by President Bush.
Below is the rest of the letter:
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A series of conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders may be impelling Tehran to back its own allies in Iraq in what it regards as a proxy war with the U.S., according to security experts and officials in the U.S., Iran and Iraq.
Dozens of Iranian officials, members of the security forces and insurgents belonging to Kurdish, Arab Iranian and Baluch groups have died in the fighting in recent years. It now appears to be heating up once again after an unusually cold and snowy winter.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo: A Kurdish rebel from Pejak inspects a crater left behind by an alleged Iranian artillery attack near a mountain encampment in Qandil in northern Iraq on April 13. The group threatened to launch bomb attacks inside Iran. Credit: SHWAN MOHAMMED / AFP
The advertising on the dry cleaner's window said much about the conflicted identity of this nation where winged gods and glorious battles of ancient Persian kings are balanced against ayatollahs and an Islamic revolution that nearly 30 years ago brought morality police and martyrs.
Before the mullahs took charge in 1979, the dry cleaner was named Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Empire. That had the whiff of nationalism and the dry cleaner suddenly became the namesake of a revered cleric. The window today is an unreconciled collage where the names of Persepolis and the cleric coexist above a painting of spear tips and Achaemenian warriors.
There are few avenues for defiance in this Shiite Muslim nation, but one of them is in the past, where the emblems, folklore and images of old Persia mingle in quiet protest against the mullahs. The pre-Islamic era is alive in jewelry, architecture, decals, books, videos and websites that feature Cyrus the Great and gold-horned bulls.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Tehran
Photo: A Worker walks by statues inspired by Persepolis that are part of the gate to the Dariush Hotel on the tourist island of Kish. The modern hotel resembles Persepolis, Iran's best-known relic of ancient Persia. Credit: Vahid Salemi / Associated Press
The preacher who was speaking to followers when a deadly blast went off in his southern Iran mosque Saturday night told an Iranian news agency that the explosion was definitely a bomb. Some Iranian authorities said the explosion in the southern city of Shiraz could have been an accident caused by munitions left as props to commemorate the Iran-Iraq war.
Meanwhile, amateur video of the blast has emerged. Check it out below: Mohammed Anjavinejad, a mid-ranking cleric who heads an organization that opposes Sunni extremists and Bahais, told the Persian-language Alef News Agency that the blast that interrupted his speech was "without a doubt" caused by a bomb.
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Authorities upped the casualty count from a Saturday night explosion in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz to 12 dead and 202 injured. The explosion took place in a Shiite Muslim house of worship during a talk by a controversial cleric. Mohammed Anjivinejad is known for his denunciations of the Wahhabi Islam that drives Sunni extremists, as well as the Bahai faith, a small religion born in Iran during the 19th century that Shiite clerics consider heretical [UPDATE: See note below]. Check out the English-language section of his group's website.
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Climb up the stairs out of downtown Tehran’s Galoubandak subway stop near the Grand Bazaar and you can’t help but be astounded. A sidewalk that used to be packed full of shoppers, cart pushers and motorcyclists, leaving no elbow room for any of them, is now a scene of old women and men relaxing on benches, reading newspapers, gossiping or chatting.
The Grand Bazaar was once the hub of all consumer goods filtering into the country. It’s declined in economic power in recent decades, in part because of global economic trends beyond Iran's control. But the motor vehicle pollution and congestion in downtown Tehran have not helped either, driving away many potential customers.
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 Is Iran ready to talk?
After spurning European offers to return to the negotiating table over its nuclear enrichment program, a powerful Iranian politician said his country is ready to compromise.
Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative moderate who heads the country's powerful Expediency Council, told worshipers gathered for Friday prayer in Tehran today that negotiation is "the best thing" to resolve the dispute between the West and Tehran over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Iran has thus far declined to sit down with European officials to craft another package of incentives in exchange for suspending its nuclear enrichment program. Powerful voices in the Iranian political scene have demanded that Iran not budge one inch on the issue of enrichment.
Iran argues that it is permitted to enrich uranium under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which allows signatories to develop nuclear technology so long as they abide by international safeguards. The U.S. counters that Iran's past nuclear activities place a cloud of suspicion over Iran's drive to master the enrichment of uranium, the key technical hurdle in developing a nuclear weapons program as well as creating fuel to power an electricity plant.
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The U.S., Europe and other powers hope to get Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program by offering it a package of economic and security incentives.
But judging by recent murmurs in the Iranian press, the conservatives now dominating Iran’s political and security establishment don’t sound like they’re ready to deal.
On the contrary, the right-wing Iranian press has a struck a triumphant tone and dismissed any compromise over the nuclear program, which the leadership of the Islamic Republic is trying to embed into the country’s national identity.
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A stunning report carried by pro-government Iranian media accuses Saudi Arabia of complicity in the February assassination of the militant Imad Mughniyah, the shadowy Lebanese commander with ties to Syria and Iran.
The report cites unnamed sources close to the investigation and could not be confirmed. At the very least it hints at ongoing tension between Damascus and Tehran over the course of the probe into the legendary Hezbollah commander's fiery death.
 The report was first published Tuesday by the Persian-language section of the Fars News Agency and then carried today on the front page of the conservative newspaper Kayhan, which is close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran's top authority on all matters.
On the off chance you read Farsi, the links are here and here. The report has been translated by the Italian AKI news agency, as well.
Mughniyah was a high-ranking Hezbollah commander said to be in charge of the group's international operations. He was killed in a Feb. 12 car bombing attack in a highly secure section of Damascus.
The source quoted in the report told Fars that the Syrians had discovered a network connected to Israeli intelligence and Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan as well as a Saudi intelligence official in Damascus as partly behind the death. The source alleged that the Syrians had already arrested a Saudi official and were about to release their long-delayed report about the killing implicating the Saudis but were swayed by Kuwait to hold off.
Both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait urged their citizens to leave Lebanon after Mughniyah's slaying.
Here are other allegations in the report:
- Israeli intelligence officials monitored Mughniyah's comings and goings for a year before the assassination.
- Conspirators included Jordanians, Syrians and Palestinians who, along with their families, had rented or bought housing near Mughniyah's residence in the Kafar Sosa district of Damascus.
- The Saudi official overseeing the operation fled home after the assassination but was lured back by a woman with whom he was having an affair.
Take 'em all with a grain of salt.
Publication of the report by pro-government outlets suggests an ongoing rift between Syria and Iran over Mughniyah's death. It could also stir up sectarian troubles in Lebanon, where Shiite Hezbollah is at odds with the Saudi-backed Sunni-led government.
— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo: The front page of today's Kayhan in Tehran featured a photograph of Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan conferring with President Bush above an article alleging Saudi complicity in the assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah.
U.S. officials and analysts are increasingly casting the Iraq conflict as a part and parcel of a broader regional battle against Iran — a "proxy war" between U.S.-backed forces and those supported by Tehran.
Just as we predicted, Iran's influence in Iraq was a major theme woven throughout the Senate testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the two top American officials in Iraq.
Petraeus accused the Quds Force, an elite unite of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and Lebanese Hezbollah of training, arming, financing and directing Shiite militias he called "special groups," who've been blamed for rocket attacks on the U.S.-protected Green Zone: Unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.
Crocker coined a nifty new term, saying that Iran and Syria were pursuing a strategy of "Lebanization" of Iraq by using Shiites to undermine the government and the U.S.-led security forces, just as they used Hezbollah in Lebanon: They're using that same partnership in Iraq, in my view, although the weights are reversed, with Iran having the greater weight and Syria the lesser. But they are working in tandem together against us and against a stable Iraqi state.
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Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology was a time to trumpet Tehran's latest technological breakthroughs. But today was also a time for celebrations and feasts.
State-controlled television set the tone. It intermittently played video clips showing the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran waving with words, "We can," on the top right of the screen, set to brassy martial songs with catchy lyrics like: "We, the Iranian Muslims, have managed to achieve a breakthrough in science and show our merits."
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While Israel is trying to keep a low profile about its latest series of catastrophe drills, the Lebanese are accusing the Jewish state of beating the drums of war.
Top Hezbollah officials said that the military exercises next door, which continued for the second day today, were a sign that Israel was preparing for the next war after its "humiliating defeat" in the summer 2006 war.
The Shiite militant group's deputy leader, Sheik Naeem Qassem, told a rally in south Beirut on Sunday: These drills are part of preparations for war because Israel is always in a warlike situation … These drills are part of plans for something in the future, probably it could be far off, but it is a preparation for war.
Hezbollah's main supporter, Iran, described the Israeli home front defense drills as "provocative actions." Mohammed Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Tehran today: "The war game was performed to boost the low spirit of the Zionist regime's troops. But the nature and raison d'etre of the Zionist regime is terrorism and intimidation. Regrettably, whenever one U.S. official visits Israel, the Zionist regime's officials are emboldened to behave aggressively."
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Think of Iran and the United States as a bitterly divorced couple. They're not on speaking terms, but every now and then they come together to discuss the future of their troubled offspring, the Iraqi government, which remains beholden to both Washington and Tehran.
But even then it's rocky. Neither wants to be seen as requesting the meeting, lest they appear to be buckling to the desire of the other.
Today, an Iranian foreign ministry official in Tehran suggested Iran was amenable to a further round of talks with U.S. officials over security in Iraq. He said the Americans had formally requested such a meeting.
"We have received an official note from U.S. administration via the Swiss Embassy in Tehran for another round of talks over Iraqi security and we are taking it into consideration," said Mohammed Ali Hosseini, spokesman for the foreign ministry, at his weekly press briefing.
A U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad sidestepped the question of whether the Americans had requested the talks. It was the Iraqi government that instigated the talks, said a U.S. official. Here's an e-mail from Mirembe Nantongo, a spokeswoman for the U.S. in the Iraqi capital: We understand that the Iraqi foreign ministry is making efforts to hold another round of trilateral talks. We have indicated our readiness to participate in another round if the Iraqi government believes talks at this time could help improve the security situation.
Iran's role in Iraq is sure to be a major issue this week as Gen. David H. Petraeus testifies before Congress about the status of the ongoing conflict. U.S. officials accuse Iran of training and equipping Shiite militiamen who have fired rockets and mortars on the Green Zone and attacked U.S. troops with sophisticated roadside bombs. But Hosseini said Iran backed the Maliki government's crackdown on Shiite gangs.
Hosseini today confirmed new reports that Iran tried to slow down the fighting between the Iraqi government and militiamen loyal to Iraqi cleric Muqtada Sadr in southern Iraq and Baghdad: Recently an Iraqi delegation came here and we had talks to calm Basra. Iran is, as always, trying to bring peace and stability to Iraq.
The U.S. says Iran is undermining the government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki by supporting armed groups that Iraqi security forces are trying to dismantle. But Hosseini today voiced support for the crackdown and made a not-so-subtle swipe at U.S.-backed Arab countries who have yet to restore ties with Iraq's Shiite-led government: We fully support Maliki's stance and we expect all regional countries to support him too. Of course, there should be a difference between the illegal militant groups who are against stability and security in Iraq and those legal groups supporting Maliki's government. But now U.S. forces are causing human casualties and damage in the residential areas of Basra.
— Times staff writers in Beirut, Baghdad and Tehran
Photo: Mohammed Ali Hosseini, spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, spoke to reporters today. Credit: Hassan Ghaedi / Fars News Agency
A new poll released today shows that Iranians want better ties with the United States and have less fear of a confrontation with America than before.
The poll, conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, showed 55% of Iranians view U.S. bases in the Middle East as a threat, down from 73% in late 2006.
According to the survey, one in three Iranians thinks it’s likely that the U.S. military will launch airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, compared to one in two a little over a year earlier.
Only about one in 10 thinks war between the U.S. and Iran is inevitable, compared to one in four in the earlier poll.
The poll also found that fewer Iranians dislike the U.S. Those saying they have a very unfavorable view of the U.S. dropped from 65% to 51%, with a slight majority saying they have a positive regard for the American people.
“It appears that as the sense of threat has subsided, there has been some thawing of Iranian hostility and a greater readiness to enter into closer relations with the United States,” said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, according to a press statement.
Still the U.S. is not beloved by Iranians, according to the poll. More than four out of five Iranians said that the U.S. aims to weaken and divide the Islamic world, and a majority said America is out to humiliate Muslims.
Questions were put to a random sample of 710 Iranians from Jan. 13 to Feb. 9.
On the issue of greatest contention between Tehran and the West, about 60% of those polled thought that nuclear weapons were contrary to Islam while 80% supported their country’s nuclear energy program.
The poll also found that Iranians want more cultural ties with the U.S., even though they view it as hostile to Iran and Islam.
The poll found that:
- 57% favor open-ended talks between the U.S. and Iran.
- 69% support a U.S.-Iran dialogue over securing Iraq.
- 64% favor greater US-Iran trade.
- 63% favor incrfeased cultural, educational and athletic exchanges.
- 71% favor more tourism between the two countries.
— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo: An Iranian woman, center, prepares tea during a relatives gathering marking the ancient festival of Sizdeh Bedar, the last day of the two-week Persian New Year holidays, at the Pardisan Park in Tehran on April 1 The festival predates Islam and goes back thousands of years to the time when Zoroastrianism was the predominant religion of Persia. Credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi
Iran's role in Iraq is going to be a huge question and topic of debate this coming week. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Gen. David Petraeus, head of the military mission in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, head of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, will speak before Congress about the situation in Iraq.
An advisor to Iraq's main Shiite political party told an Iranian news service that Tehran played a key positive role in brokering the peace between rival Shiite factions last weekend.
And in what can be construed as the first semi-official Iranian acknowledgment of the role, Tehran's state-controlled English-language daily carried the report in today's edition.
 Mohsen Hakim, a political advisor to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, told Iran's Mehr News Agency that Tehran laid the groundwork for the end to the fighting between the government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada Sadr. He said that an Iraqi delegation led by lawmaker Ali Adeeb held talks with Iranian officials during a Friday, March 28, visit to Tehran.
Here's Hakim: Tehran used its positive influence (on the Iraqi nation) to prepare the ground for returning peace to Iraq, and the new situation is the result of Iran’s efforts.
So will Crocker and Petraeus give Iran plaudits for helping bring peace to Iraq when they testify before Congress? Not likely.
Read on »
The protest in front of the Dutch Embassy today in Tehran was supposed to show the Muslim rage against right-wing politician Geert Wilders' film, "Fitna," which criticizes the Koran.
Instead, the demonstration showed mostly apathy. Only about 40 students, 25 guys and 15 women, showed up for the outing. They brought a couple of loudspeakers and called for the sacking of Wilders, who has likened the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf."
They chanted against America and Israel, but also denounced liberal Iranian political factions as traitors.
Wilders had said that his intention was to provoke. Many criticized him for trying to stir up a hornet's nest between the West and Islam. Some feared riots and bloodshed once the movie was released, like those that erupted amid the 2006 Danish cartoon controversy.
But today, the police outnumbered the protesters, and a 15-foot fence surrounded the embassy wall, preventing anyone from hurling projectiles at the building.
At the end of the rally, a couple of demonstrators pelted the embassy with eggs, but most were polite and calm. One protester went out of his way to say he had no problem with the Dutch or the West.
"We are against the emerging anti-Islamic trend in the West," said Hanif Hussain Satarizadeh, a student at Amir Kabir university in Tehran. "The Netherlands as a country is not our target."
— Ramin Mostaghim In Tehran
Photo: Iranians attended a protest outside the Dutch Embassy against the production and broadcast of the film "Fitna" by right-wing Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders in Tehran today. Credit: Hasan Sarbakhshian / Associated Press
Arab leaders at last weekend's summit in Damascus voiced claims over three disputed Persian Gulf Islands that both Iran and the United Arab Emirates consider part of their property. Iran was predictably outraged by the claim.
 Though it was a minor footnote to an Arab League Summit marred by nearly a dozen no-shows and a murky outcome, it remains a sore spot for Iranians, who took the matter up with the United Nations.
The decades-old islands dispute also became fodder for the main Friday prayer sermon in Tehran today.
"The final declaration of the Arab Summit showed they have been entrapped by the U.S.," prayer leader Ahmad Khatami told worshippers. "Three islands in the Persian Gulf forever belong to Iran and the Persian Gulf remains Persian for good, and nobody can deny it."
Khatami is a conservative not to be confused with the reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.
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Sen. Joe Lieberman was trying to portray presidential contender Barack Obama as a no-nothing on Iraq. But he may have stumbled himself, inventing a whole new militant group supposedly destabilizing Iraq. In a Fox News interview Wednesday, the Connecticut lawmaker and backer of Republican presidential nominee John McCain said that if the U.S. heeded Obama's advice, a group called "Al Qaeda in Iran" would have taken over Iraq.
Here's what Lieberman said: Sen. Obama doesn't come to this debate with a lot of credibility. Basically on the question of Iraq, John McCain has had the guts to stand out on his own arguing for what he thought was right. And it turned out that he was right about the surge working to improve conditions in Iraq. If we did what Sen. Obama wanted us to do last year, Al-Qaeda in Iran [NOTE: SEE UPDATE BELOW] would be in control of Iraq today. The whole Middle East would be in turmoil and American security and credibility would be jeopardized.
There's no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iran, though Al Qaeda of Iraq has given U.S. and Iraqi forces plenty of trouble.
Read on »
An annual poll commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corp. ranked Iran as the country with the most negative influence on the world.
But its arch-rival Israel shouldn't gloat too much: the Jewish state ranked as the country with the second most negative influence.
 The poll results, released this week, show that while Israel's negatives slipped from 57% to 52%, negative views of Iran’s influence have held steady at 54%, making it the most negatively rated of the countries tested for the second year in a row.
“The poll suggests that Iran continues to pay a price for its nuclear stand-off with the United Nations," said Doug Miller or GlobeScan, who was among the pollsters.
Pakistan followed Israel as the third most unpopular country.
The pollsters asked 17,457 people across 34 countries between Oct. 31, 2007, and Jan. 25, 2008, to rate whether Brazil, Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the U.S.A. and the European Union had a mostly positive or negative impact on the world. In addition to GlobeScan, the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland oversaw the survey.
Among the countries that fared well in the study were Japan, Germany and the European Union who scored the highest marks, while America's standing improved slightly after years of deterioration.
Those who say the U.S. has a negative influence declined from 52% to 47%, while those who give Uncle Sam the big thumbs up increased from 31% to 35%.
Pollster Steven Kull suggests the worldwide hoopla over the prospect of a President Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton may have bolstered America's image abroad: It may be that as the US approaches a new presidential el
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Lebanon watchers have been worried for some time that the current political stalemate between the Western-leaning government and the Iranian-backed opposition could explode and plunge the country into civil war. 
