By Michael Hill / Sun Staff / May 29, 2005

And the winner is - drum roll, please - Iran!

That's at least one surprising answer to the question of who is coming out on top in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Everything has gone very well for the Iranians," says Juan Cole, a professor specializing in Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, a view echoed by many others who study the region.

"They had two major geopolitical enemies on the region. One was the Taliban and the other was Saddam Hussein," Cole says. "So from their point of view, the United States has very helpfully removed their major problems.

"And not only has it removed those major problems, it has installed regimes that have strong traditional alliances with the Iranians," he says.

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