CAIRO, March 13, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Intent on a regime change in Iran, the Bush administration is holding closed-door meetings with scholars for advice, creating an Iran office in Washington and opening listening posts abroad, The Washington Post reported on Monday, March 13.

"The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy," said Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Spending more time on the Iranian file, President George W. Bush has held a series of closed-door meetings with his team to discuss the issue, inviting some 30 to 40 specialists for consultations.

"The message that we received is that they are in favor of separating the Iranian people from the regime," said Esmail Amid-Hozour, an Iranian American businessman and a member of the board of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Board members met two weeks ago with Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

The Bush administration has been spearheading a campaign against Tehran over its nuclear program, which Tehran maintains is only for generating electricity.

The International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday, March 8, decided to send a report on Iran's nuclear activity to the UN Security Council, clearing the way for an action against Tehran over its atomic energy drive.

Bush has been spending more time with his team and advisors on Iran, according to the Post.

The Bush administration has taken several practical steps to further focus on the Iranian file.

The State Department has created an Iran desk last week, with 10 staff working full-time on Iran, compared with only two last year, according to the Post.

It is also launching more training in the Farsi language and is planning an Iranian career track, which has been difficult without an embassy in Tehran.

Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns told the Post that the department will also add staff in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as well as at other embassies in the vicinity of Iran, all assigned to watch Tehran.

He called the new Dubai outpost the "21st century equivalent" of the Riga station in Latvia that monitored the Soviet Union in the 1930s when the US had no embassy in Moscow.

The Bush administration has launched a $75 million program to advance democracy in Iran by funding NGOs and promoting cultural exchanges.

The new campaign also includes expanding Voice of America broadcasts into Iran to 4 hours a day from 1 hour currently.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is expected to call later Monday for an expansion of global broadcasting in Iran and more material in Farsi published on the Internet.

"We in European countries need to communicate better with the Iranian people," he will say in a speech, extracts of which were obtained by Reuters.

"I encourage international organizations and non-governmental organizations to make reports on Iranian affairs available in Farsi on the Internet," he will tell the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.