PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER

Rumsfeld pushes for regime change in Iran (Guy Dinmore in Washington and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Iran, May 29 2003, Financial Times)

Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, is spearheading efforts to make "regime change" in Iran the official policy goal of the Bush administration, but his campaign is meeting with considerable resistance from other senior figures, according to officials and analysts. [...]

"Rumsfeld sees this opportunity to adopt a formal policy of regime change," said Flynt Leverett, who left his post as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council in March and joined the Brookings Institution think-tank.

He said the view of hawks in the Pentagon is that the struggle in Iran is not between hardline clerics and elected reformists led by President Mohammed Khatami, but between the people and the system.

"They [in the Pentagon] see the whole superstructure as discredited, a house of cards ready to be pushed over the precipice," Mr Leverett added. The European Union, which has hitherto adopted a softer line than the US towards the regime in Tehran, is also expressing increasing concern over Iran's nuclear programme, adds Judy Dempsey in Brussels.

A senior EU official said: "We now have reason to believe Iran is developing nuclear weapons. We would be fooling ourselves if we thought it was anything else."

The regime may be in for what we used to call a "long, hot summer" in the streets. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 30, 2003 8:26 AM