A top U.S. official assured Iran on Tuesday that the United States is not trying to overthrow Iran’s government and is willing to resume direct talks without preconditions. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the administration has no interest in “regime change” in Tehran, and no business picking “winners and losers” in Iran’s volatile politics, which pit reformers against a government dominated by Islamic clerics long hostile to the United States. Armitage’s repeated reassurances to the Tehran regime come as the Bush administration is pressing Iran to give up its efforts to build a nuclear bomb. And they follow by just a week a similar but even more explicit offer to North Korea by President Bush, who promised not to attack that country if it gave up its nuclear weapons. Full Story