Once again, Iraq appears destined to slide back into sectarian division and violence, as the Iranian regime rubs its hands together in gleeful anticipation of their growing influence and spreading power.
What's just as disturbing is the way Western countries have been prepared to ignore the chaotic aftermath of the Iraq's elections - and its potentially dire consequences. With Barack Obama wanting to start bringing US troops home from August this year, it's clear no-one in Washington wants to rock the boat by asking difficult questions about what sort of Iraq the Americans will leave behind them.
But by turning their backs on Iraq at a crucial moment in its less-than-perfect experiment with democracy, America and its allies could be abandoning Iraqis to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cabal of ranting clerics.
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Tehran, Iran, May 10 - When Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri went missing during a pilgrimage to Mecca last summer, Ministry of Defence intelligence officials promptly warned his relatives not to alert anyone to his disappearance.
Amiri, 32, disappeared in Saudi Arabia on 3 June 2009, three days after arriving in the Kingdom.
An official from the Ministry of Defence's security section, who went by the name Ahmadi, contacted Amiri's wife, telling her it would be in her husband's interest if the matter was kept secret. She was told to provide the ministry with any new information she might receive.
Ahmadi assured her that the ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs were both on her husband's case.
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Tehran, May 09 - Five Kurdish activists, including a woman, were hanged on Sunday in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison.
The Tehran public prosecutor's office in a statement said Shirin Alam-Houli, Ali Heydarian, Mahdi Islamian, Farzad Kamangar, and Farhad Vakili were hanged at dawn.
They were convicted of 'Moharebeh', or 'waging war on God', in 2008 for membership in opposition Kurdish groups, including PJAK, and acting against State security.
Last week opposition websites published the text of a letter by Ms. Alam-Houli, 29, in which she described the abuse she had suffered during her three years in prison.
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A group of six prisoners were hanged in Qezel Hesar of Karaj, west of Tehran, on Saturday, May 8. They were identified by the state-run news agency IRNA as Arsalan Asadi, Mohammad Ali Fakhri, Abbas Geravand, Rahman Biabani, Parviz Taqi Zadeh and Saeed Mikaili. They were alleged to have been involved in drug trafficking. The number executions announced by the media in Iran in the past 30 days reaches 35.
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The new chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday rejected Iran's claim that international inspectors have no right to ask questions about research Tehran has conducted into missile technology and warheads.
In an interview on Thursday, Yukiya Amano, a Japanese diplomat who took over at the agency five months ago, said that Iran would not be able to satisfy the world that its nuclear program was peaceful unless it answered a series of questions about its research, its procurement of high technology and the activities of its scientists - including whether they worked on designing a warhead that could be fitted with a nuclear weapon.
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