Now is the time that a small provocation could lead to a full-blown war.

In 2003, the once “foreign terrorist organization,” Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), was used by Bush to justify an attack on Iraq. Saddam was accused of sponsoring “international terrorism,” and it was considered a felony to provide “material support” to the MEK.

Glenn Greenwald reports from The Guardian on “five lessons from the delisting of MEK as a terrorist group:

1.) “There is a separate justice system in the U.S. for Muslim-Americans”
2.) “The U.S. government is not opposed to terrorism; it favors it.”
3.) “‘Terrorism’ remains the most meaningless, and thus the most manipulated, term in political discourse.”
4.) “Legalized influence-peddling within both parties is what drives D.C.”
5.) “There is aggression between the U.S. and Iran, but it’s generally not from Iran.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a believer that the Twelfth Imam is coming soon to annihilate the U.S. and Israel and to set up a global Islamic caliphate, does not take seriously the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

One of Iran’s top military leaders went further over the weekend, however. He spoke not of his nation’s ability to defend itself from an Israeli attack, but of its potential desire to strike first — at Israel and at American military personnel and facilities. “Iran could launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel if it was sure the Jewish state were preparing to attack it, a senior commander of its elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying on Sunday,” Reuters reports. “Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, made the comments to Iran’s state-run Arabic language Al-Alam television, according to a report on the network’s website. “Iran…could launch a pre-emptive attack if it was sure that the enemies are putting the final touches to attack it,’ Al-Alam said, paraphrasing the military commander. Hajizadeh said any attack on Iranian soil could trigger ‘World War Three.’