The Iranians won't publicly admit it, but they're tickled pink that we kicked Saddam's ass and paved the way for a new Iraqi government with enhanced Shiite influence. And we even dropped bombs on the Iranian opposition group at the same time. Maybe someday when the Iranian government reforms itself we'll invite them over and they can properly thank us for the favor.

from MSNBC

Report: U.S. bombed Iran militants

Mujahedin ally denounces ‘clear kowtowing’ to Tehran

WASHINGTON, April 16 — U.S. forces have attacked the Iraqi bases of Iran’s main opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing unnamed U.S. government officials.

THE TIMES quoted the officials as saying the group, also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, had supported Saddam Hussein, making it a legitimate military target.

The United States bombed the group’s military headquarters at Camp Ashraf, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, as well as one of its two other bases in Iraq, The Times said in a report it posted on its Web site Wednesday night.

Pentagon officials told The Times that the air attacks had been followed by efforts by U.S. ground forces to pursue members of the group and its National Liberation Army. Some members of the group were expected to surrender soon, the officials said Wednesday.

The Times said it was not clear whether the attacks were intended as a way to thank Iran for its policy of noninterference in the war in Iraq.

With tanks and artillery as well as armed fighters based near the border with Iran, the Mujahedin has sought to overthrow Iran’s Islamic government for more than a decade. The U.S. government estimated recently that the group had “several thousand fighters,” most of whom were based in Iraq.

REPEATED AIR STRIKES

Mohammad Mohaddessin, a top official of an Iranian opposition coalition that includes the Mujahedin, said there had been repeated U.S. air strikes on the group’s bases, followed by cross-border raids on its guerrillas inside Iraq by Iranian forces.

“It is a clear kowtowing to the demands of the Iranian regime,” Mohaddessin said, according to the Times.

In a statement in November, a bipartisan group of more that 150 members of Congress urged the Bush administration to remove the organization from the State Department’s terrorist list, calling it an effective counter to the Iranian government.

A U.S. defense official said Wednesday U.S. forces were still pursuing various paramilitary and other opposition groups based inside Iraq. He could not confirm that the attacks were aimed directly at the Mujahedin.

But he said that the area north of Baghdad where the group was known to have bases was still not secured and that Washington could not rule out ground attacks with “foreign fighters.”