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Iran's Islamic regime has survived a devastating war with Iraq, strong American sanctions and international isolation in its 30 years of power. It has seen reformist and hard-line presidents come and go, with barely a flinch.
Iranian authorities criticized international media reports and took steps to control the flow of information from independent news sources as anti-government protests raged in the country for a second day Sunday.
The hard part is still to come.
Israel's fight with Hamas in Gaza, like the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon two years ago, is not just a struggle over the Palestinian issue but a broader proxy battle between Western allies and Iran for the very future of the Middle East.
They fan out across Baghdad in summer's scorching heat — men in blue overalls picking up trash, mowing the sparse grass in parks, and standing on ladders to paint highway underpasses and prune palm trees.
It is a politician's dream: Handing out cold, hard cash to people on the street as they plead for help. Iraq's prime minister has been doing just that in recent weeks, doling out Iraqi dinars as an aide trails behind, keeping a tally.
It's been a year of drought and sand storms across Iraq — a dry spell that has devastated the country's crucial wheat crop and created new worries about the safety of drinking water.
Don't try to convince Taha Yassin that Iraq's power shortages are finally easing: His children cry each night when the fan cuts off and the house heats up.
The flood of Palestinians out of Gaza is fraying relations between Israel and Egypt — ostensible partners in peace but now bitterly at odds over the border chaos — undercutting the chances that President Bush's Mideast initiative will succeed.
Just how close might a military confrontation between Iran and the United States be?
Sailors in the Persian Gulf have known him for years: a radio operator who taunts and insults passing ships. The rants are heard and logged, then mostly forgotten.
The accusations come almost every day from U.S. officials: Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. Sponsoring terrorism. Killing Americans in Iraq. Intent on Israel's destruction. Yet, some officials add, its government will collapse if only given a push.
The shops are full of Western pop music and movies — the latest Harry Potter film, even "The Simpsons." Young women stroll the streets in skinny jeans and short coats, their heads barely covered, arm-in-arm with boys in muscle shirts and spiky hair.
One of Iran's top reform politicians said Wednesday that demonizing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — such as in this week's Columbia University forum — only strengthens hard-liners' hand as Iranians rally around their otherwise unpopular leader.
The street market bustles in the early mornings and late afternoons as shoppers come out to buy fruit, bread, clothes and toys. Late into the hot summer nights, whole families gather to eat grilled kebabs at tiny stalls, their small children shrieking as they play tag.
It's all the buzz in the Saudi capital — the two new skyscrapers that soon will soar upward from this city in the middle of flat and barren desert, taking their place above a row of chic new sidewalk cafes.
Iran's abrupt release of 15 British sailors and marines is raising hopes the country might compromise on other disputes, most notably its nuclear program.
The warnings from the United Nations, Europe and the U.S. are dire: The war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan is headed toward disaster, and Sudan's government must allow in peacekeepers to prevent it.
It's one of those moments of clarity that show the huge gap between how the United States and the West see the world and how Muslims in the Middle East perceive it.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld rejected criticism that he had sent too few U.S. troops to Iraq, telling an Arab television network in an interview that the United States had sought a "balance."
Iran's boast that it has joined "the club of nuclear countries" by enriching uranium may rattle the Western world. But diplomats and experts familiar with the program say Iran still is far from producing any weapons-grade material needed for bombs and may be exaggerating its own progress.
Terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has sharply lowered his profile in recent months, halting his group's Internet claims as the number of big suicide bombings in Iraq — his infamous signature form of attack — has fallen.
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