European Institute

Late last summer Bush administration officials were re-thinking their strategy for out-playing an Iran that seemed to hold all the cards. U.S. forces had done Iranians the service of toppling their traditional foes the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and now found themselves tied down in Iraq. Tehran seemed to be waging proxy-war across the region, almost certainly green-lighting Hezbollah’s attacks that triggered war with Israel last summer as well as the subsequent campaign to destabilize the Western-backed government in Lebanon. Iranian support for the terrorist group Hamas was similarly adding fuel to the Israel-Palestinian violence. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards agents reportedly were arming Shiite militias in Iraq with armor-piercing explosives of the type responsible for the deaths of an estimated 170 U.S. and coalition soldiers.