Basically, Ayatollah Khamanei seems to have decided to proceed along two tracks. The first track has the firebrand Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr leading his Mahdi army in an armed insurrection against the American occupiers. The idea is to make Iraq virtually ungovernable, forcing the Americans into an early exit. The second track consists of encouraging Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the hugely respected Iraqi cleric, to consolidate his power among the Shia community."
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"Should a Shia-dominated Iraq emerge from the embers of the Gulf War, it can be expected to cooperate closely with Iran. While the seniority of its hierarchy of ayatollahs would give it considerable independence, the two countries would consult closely on a wide range of matters from oil prices to diplomacy.

Close ties between the world’s only two Shia countries would make for a formidable alliance. Given their oil and gas reserves, as well as their land mass and literate populations, they would dominate the region, and pose a major threat to American and Israeli interests."
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"In the post-9/11 world, nuclear proliferation is a tough sell. Iran can ill afford a confrontation with the world’s sole superpower on an issue that isolates it, as none of its neighbours are happy with the thought of militant clerics with a nuclear arsenal. After the American elections, no matter who wins, the pressure on Teheran to roll back its uranium enrichment programme can only mount. The fact is that it is difficult to believe the official claim that Iran’s nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and is aimed at overcoming the country’s power shortage.

The ayatollahs in Teheran should try and put themselves in Bush and Sharon’s place: the former will not accept Iran’s dominance over the world’s biggest oil-producing region, while the latter would never countenance its sworn enemy’s possession of nuclear warheads and the missiles to deliver them.