IRAN - Pax Americana Is Changing - Part 5.

One of the countries likely to be most affected by the changing face of Pax Americana is Iran. After 9/11, the regime in Tehran has been labelled by the US as belonging to the "axis of evil", along with Iraq and North Korea. Iraq is no longer part of that axis, and Syria is slowly being pulled into it. For Iran, the implications of being named in that axis are significant. It will certainly become a target for multiple forms of pressure - primarily economic, diplomatic and strategic to begin with - and if that fails it could become a target for military strike in the years ahead. The application of pressure began almost as soon as it became clear that the resistance from the regime of Saddam Hussein against Operation Iraqi Freedom was either minimal or non-existent.

The biggest challenge facing the Iranian regime in the immediate future would be to find a way to deal with the US in order to survive in its current or slightly modified form, but essentially remain a theocratic state. The US, however, has no desire to see the theocracy survive and it is pursuing a two-pronged approach to apply pressure on the foundations of the theocracy. On the one hand it is doing this through the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK) organisation, with which it has developed a working relationship. And on the other it is cultivating Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah of Iran, as a potential constitutional monarch (see News Service of this week & the following pages).

Finding a platform for negotiation and eventual rapprochement with the US will be a difficult task in the regional and global atmosphere created by the US war against terror. This has become particularly obvious following the recent suicide attacks at the Western compounds in Riyadh and on multiple targets in Casablanca. Some observers say the attacks were planned and co-ordinated with a degree of expertise and tactical information that suggests it could not have occurred without complicity by state agencies.

US officials have expressed the suspicion that Al Qaida leaders in Iran planned the bombings in Riyadh. These allegedly include Saif Al Adel, an Egyptian regarded as Al Qaida's current number three leader. According to US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld: "There's no question but that there have been and are today senior Al Qaida leaders in Iran, and they are busy". Saudi officials have added to the speculation that he may have planned the Riyadh bombings but his role and whereabouts remain uncertain.

For its part, refuting US allegations that Iran has become a haven for the Al Qaida fugitives, the Tehran regime has said that during the Iranian year from March 21, 2002-March 20, 2003 handed over 500 Al Qaida terrorists to their home countries. Speaking to the Associated Press on May 22, Saeed Pourazizi, a close aide of Iranian President Mohammed Khatami said Al Qaida "is a terrorist group threatening Iran's interests. Its extremist interpretation of Islam contradicts the Islamic democracy Iran is trying to promote. There is no commonality of anything between us".

Another facet of the way things are moving is that, despite the tensions, officials of the US and Iranian governments have been holding talks discreetly in Geneva and other locations over the past year. Both sides have been keen to play down the talks for their own domestic political reasons, among other things. The Bush administration has said the talks were designed to ease tensions, but discounts the idea they were leading to diplomatic relations, severed after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. On May 15, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, Khatami took a similar line. He said the discussions were a continuation of contacts under the auspices of the UN, dating back several years, and involved the US war against the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as the war in Iraq.