Does the U.S. have a smoking gun against Iran?

Helping the insurgency?
The exception, the place where the U.S. accuses Iran of direct harm, is Iraq. For many Americans, the accusation that Iran or Iranian-backed groups are killing U.S. troops in Iraq is a call for action.

Iran denies the Bush administration charges, but a fair number of independent analysts call the U.S. evidence strong, if circumstantial.

The basic accusation is that Iran provides money and weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq that then target American troops. The evidence the U.S. cites is the spread of powerful roadside bombs called explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs, that kill troops even in heavily armored vehicles.

U.S. military officers say they know the EFPs come from Iran because they bear Iranian markings, and because captured militants have told them so. The workmanship is so precise they could only come from a modern factory with machine tools, available in Iran but not Iraq.

The U.S. has never specified who in Iran’s government it believes responsible. But military briefers point out that the Quds Force branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which report to Khamenei, has a history of supporting Shiite militants outside Iran.

Recently, even as the evidence of Iranian involvement has firmed, the number of EFP attacks has sharply declined.

U.S. Maj. Gen. James Simmons said on Nov. 15 that Iran’s promises to Iraq’s government that it would stem the flow of weapons “appear to be holding up.”

Why would Iran suddenly stop funding attacks?

There are many theories and no certainty: Perhaps Iran felt it had made the point it could be dangerous. Maybe it wanted to stay on the Iraqi government’s good side. Perhaps it felt rival Sunni Muslims were so beaten down, it no longer needed to help fellow Shiites.

Or perhaps Iran worried the U.S. might retaliate unless it eased off.

Official: Chances of regime change slim
The last four years of Iraq war are central to how the U.S. perceives the current crisis with Iran.

Before the war, the Bush administration predicted that Iraqis would joyously welcome a U.S. invasion. In fact, many Iraqis were fervently glad to get rid of the tyrant Saddam, but a fierce resistance to the U.S. occupation soon grew.

Perhaps because of that, U.S. officials have been cautious about the chances of “regime change” in Iran, although a handful of Bush administration figures have called it an option.

There are numerous signs Iranians dislike their current government. Iran’s young, well-educated population sometimes chafes at authoritarian rule. The country has an inefficient economy, made worse by Ahmadinejad’s blunders.

And Khamenei lacks the stern, spellbinding charisma that bound the first revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, so strongly to his people.

But Iran’s clerical regime “has survived everything short of the plague” in its 28 years, said Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington.

And no coherent, organized opposition has ever emerged.

Khalaji is blunt: Ahmadinejad may be unpopular and “very fragile.” But he says: “The regime is not vulnerable at all.”

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