The Bush administration has been right in recent weeks to focus attention on Iran--but not because of the threat that Iran might build nuclear weapons. Iran is the source of a much more powerful weapon of mass destruction that has already been unleashed against the West: the ideology of Islamic theocracy, with its tactic of state-sponsored terrorism.

And we must confront this threat now because we have an opportunity to strike at the very heart of Iran's regime by supporting its repudiation by its own citizens.

Iran has long been the leading ideological and material source of terrorism. The Ayatollah Khomeini was the first to develop a systematic theory of modern Islamic theocracy--a totalitarian fusion of mosque and state that is nearly identical to the philosophy later espoused by Osama bin Laden. Under the theocracy founded by Khomeini, Iran has been a systematic exporter of the ideas and methods of terrorism, backing international terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Most important, Iran was the first Islamic regime to strike systematically at the United States, from the seizing of our embassy in Tehran in 1979--to the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983--to the kidnapping of Americans in Lebanon through the 1980s--to Iran's probable involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996--to its sheltering of al Qaeda leaders responsible for the latest anti-American bombing in Saudi Arabia. For almost a quarter of a century, Iran has been at war against the United States of America...

...Dambruoso flatly confirms what I wrote in December 2002: "Our investigations permit us to establish that the country of the Ayatollahs is the preferred springboard for militants headed for Iraq." Dambruoso lays it out in some detail. Zarkawi had already organized groups of fighters before the liberation of Iraq, and they operate alongside the remnants of Saddam's killers. The European network is used to recruit new bodies for the jihad in Iraq, and they enter from Iran in groups of three to five, with phony passports and usually pretending to be businessmen (or, I can add, journalists). They rent or buy small apartments in Baghdad, Tikrit, and Ramadi, where they organize larger cells, and then move into the battle area. Zarkawi himself entered Iraq by this method, along with one of the leading ideologues of the jihad, Abu Masaab (a Syrian).

Dambruoso seems to believe that the relationship between Zarkawi and Osama bin Laden is ambiguous, having seen some evidence (primarily the famous letter captured by U.S. special forces late last year) that Zarkawi was unhappy about the lack of support from al Qaeda. But whatever their tactical and personal disagreements (and these can be feigned), they share a common strategy for Iraq: kill members of the Coalition and any Iraqi who cooperates, and provoke internal conflicts among the various ethnic and religious communities. That tracks with my own analysis, which is that we are dealing with several different groups, supported by the various terror masters in Tehran, Damascus, and Riadh, in a joint operation within the overall matrix of Hezbollah — which of course means Iran...

Even as the Islamic Regime of Iran accelerated the number of arrests, tortures, and death sentences it carried out, on May 29, the World Bank awarded it with two loans totaling $369 million. As justification for granting the loans, the World Bank claims they were awarded to help the people of Iran. "In many countries we have enfranchised civil societies," the Bank's president, James D. Wolfensohn said at a luncheon. "Should we stop doing that and wait until we had perfect countries before we lend?"

Wolfensohn added: "The easiest thing for me, for the Bank, would be to say, just wait until these countries are democratic, but that is impracticable. The bank is not the United Nations. Its goal is economic development. Sometimes this must go hand in hand with democratic development."

These are fair points, but surely Wolfensohn is aware that in Iran, 70 percent of non-oil revenue and 50 percent of the economy is controlled by the "tax-exempt organizations" (bonyaads), which are accountable only to the Supreme Leader. The people of Iran, in other words, will not benefit from these loans.

Since May 2000, Iran has borrowed $801 million from the World Bank and another $276 million has been approved for two more projects.

Based on information provided by the Bureau of International Information Programs of the U.S. State Department, the U.S. has always opposed World Bank's assistance to Iran, but has been unsuccessful to block the approval of the loans to that country in recent years, mainly because other large Bank shareholders have sought to increase their engagement with Iran.

"I want to assure you that the Treasury Department and the U.S. Executive Director at the World Bank, while not fully successful, have consistently and actively sought to block all proposals for World Bank Group assistance to Iran," Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury William Schuerch said in his October 29 testimony before a panel of the U.S. House of Representatives...