Salman Rushdie Afghanistan, which began in 2001, but was a vocal critic of the 2003 war in Iraq. He has stated that while there was a "case to be made for the removal of Saddam Hussein", US unilateral military intervention was unjustifiable. In the wake of the "Jyllands-Posten" Muhammad cartoons controversy in March 2006—which many considered an echo of the death threats and "fatwā" that followed publication of "The Satanic Verses" in 1989—Rushdie signed the manifesto "Together Facing the New Totalitarianism", a statement warning of the dangers of religious extremism. The Manifesto was published in the left-leaning French weekly "Charlie Hebdo" in
Embassy of the United Kingdom, Tehran 1988, the UK's Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe agreed with Iranian Foreign Minister Velayati to resume diplomatic contact. Staff returned in January 1989. On 14 February 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie and his publishers. European Community Foreign Ministers agreed to withdraw their heads of mission from Tehran in response. The British Government withdrew all UK-based staff. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait made it desirable to re-establish relations once more, in September 1990. The UK and all other EU countries withdrew their heads of mission in April 1997 when a German court issued a verdict that members of the