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
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie and decrepit government of Great Britain should know that the era of their empire is over and today they are a valet in the service of the United States." While in 1998 the Iranian government (under British diplomatic pressure) declared it would "neither support nor hinder assassination operations on Rushdie," many clerics like Khatami rejected the move. Even soon after the government's disavowel, the Iranian press reported three clerics calling on their followers to kill Rushdie, stating that the "fatwa" was irrevocable. As late as January 2005 Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that "he still believed the British novelist