There were so many doom and gloomers who were so certain that the US/UK operation in Iraq would inflame the region and lead to extreme instability. Iran has always been a wildcard for the future. This story is very encouraging.
Iran Not Next in U.S. Firing Line - Vice President
Tue April 8, 2003 02:44 PM ET
By Gilles Trequesser
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A top Iranian official said on Tuesday he did not expect the United States to turn its military might on Iran after the war in Iraq was over, but Washington had other ways to put pressure on Tehran.
Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi told Reuters: “Americans don’t need military tools to apply pressure on us, they have other channels.” He declined to identify these channels.
The United States has accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism and President Bush included it in an “axis of evil,” together with Iraq and North Korea.
Non-military pressure could include warning Tehran that economic sanctions could be tightened or that Washington could press for a United Nations resolution to outlaw a nuclear program which the United States says Iran is developing, but which Tehran denies.
But diplomats say Washington has sent assurances to Tehran that establishment of an American-backed government in Baghdad once Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was ousted was not part of a grander regional scheme to encircle Iran after the fall of the Taliban 18 months ago in Afghanistan, its eastern neighbor.
Iran has vowed to stay neutral in the war on its doorstep but is torn between enmity for both its traditional arch-enemy the United States and Saddam, whose forces used chemical weapons against Iranian troops during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Government officials acknowledge it feels like being caught between a rock and a hard place but, in the words of one, “it is the only solution.”
That neutrality was tested on Tuesday after a rocket, apparently fired in Iraq, fell outside the southwestern city of Abadan and killed a teenager, according to local officials.
WELCOME AMERICANS WITH FLOWERS
Abtahi said the best way to protect Iran from any foreign intervention was to institutionalize democracy, a goal moderate President Mohammad Khatami has pursued since his first landslide election in 1997, with mixed results in the face of resistance from hard-line opponents.
Washington officials have said they support what they view as the Iranians’ desire to tear down the Shiite Muslim conservative establishment, which runs Iran through a plethora of unelected bodies, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the top.
Abtahi’s assessment that Iran will not be next in Washington’s firing line was shared by many in Tehran, from the well-to-do neighborhoods in the north to the dusty alleyways of the sprawling downtown bazaar.
For Mohammed, 61, a trained engineer who owns a spice shop in the bazaar, Iranians can use all the help Americans are willing to provide to end an Islamic Republic in place since the 1979 revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah.
“We’re ready for a peaceful relationship with the U.S., as we’ve had in the past, but we need a strong political message of support (from Washington) and the people will do the rest,” he said as he dished out scoops of saffron and pistachio nuts.
In another lane of shops selling pastry, cheap clothes, electrical goods and toiletries, Jalal, 38, agreed.
“I am not concerned about the Americans coming to Iran,” he said.
“But I want this to be without bloodshed. I’ll welcome them with flowers.”
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2530275
looks like the Americans still can’t get over the flower parade that wasn’t in Basra..