Southern Iraq 2003 = Iran 1979? The people at the Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran say that's what the killers of the pro-U.S. cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei are hoping. Here's SMCCDI's press release:

Assassination of Iraqi cleric opens way for Islamic republic in S. Iraq

The assassination of Abdul Majid al-Khoei, elder son of the late Ayatollah Khoei, opens the way for the Islamic regime to increase its influence in any future equation related to the Iraqi Shi-ites.

Al Khoei family is know for rejecting the Islamic republic regime policies and ideology and the funeral ceremony of the late Ayatollah Khoei [Abdul Majid al-Khoei's father], organized 2 years ago, turned into a mass protest and demonstration against the Iranian regime as he was opposed to both dictatorships in Iran and in Iraq.

The Islamic republic regime supports Ayatollah Hakim and has armed and trained hundreds of its extremist Iraqi Shia militiamen with the hope of bringing Iraq under its influence after the fall of Saddam Hussein regime.

Hakim is a machiavelical being who is known for looking for power and establishing an Islamist government based on the backwarded Sharia laws.

I don't know what to make of this. I found it via Free Republic, for what that's worth -- but I'm no fonder of the mullahs of Iran than the Freepers are.