> Is there any evidence of Iran helping Sunni extremists? It seems
> improbable
> that they would. Or is this another example of deciding to link any group
> calling itself Hizbullah (Party of God) to Iran - relying on most
> people's
> ignorance to make the connection (including it seems US intelligence).
I'll scour the shelves at Borders this weekend for the reliable texts from leftish, centrist and neo-con and "realist" conservative terrorism scholars on Iranian and Syrian state sponsorship of Hizbollah. I suspect there has been much more from the Iranian state and Assad, Sr. when he was alive, than your agnostic stance implies.
One dinner guest w/ Doug (and Jordan Hayes, wished we'd known you where there at Modern Times too), Thomas Seay, Joanna Bujes and myself the other night in San Francisco was Joel Schalit, (whose first book, "Jerusalem Calling, " looks like a great read [I've had a copy for a yr. at least....now I feel more motivated to read it...]) thinks the Istanbul bombings have Syrian state sponsorship and are payback for the IDF raid into Syria a few months ago, bombing an old terrorist training camp. http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/2002_may/interview_joel_schalit.html
On another list, leftist-trainspotters, a neo-Maoist a self-described, "tankie, " and a Hoxhaiite from Norway into the Islamist Iraqi Resistance and the unrecontructed Iraqi CP (Cadre) M-L, plus one of my Trotskyist friends in San Francisco, who happens to be Jewish, all think these Istanbul bombings are Mossad false flag provocations like the synagogogue bombings in Baghdad in the late 40's.