Well, clearly ICANN and the U.S. watch the IANA because the IANA an activity which the DOC subcontracts to ICANN to perform.

Exactly.

The IANA is not an organization and it has no independent status. It just happens to be the historical name for some of the functions of ICANN

Exactly.

so for convenience and clarity, the name remains assigned to that set of functions. For clarification read this contract that ICANN has signed with the DOC on behalf of the U.S. Government.

Indeed. And given the world, some governments, and ICANN as they are these days, I (personally) do not consider that structure to be the most stable and resilient setup that I'd rather have in place to control global resource distribution. Wilfried.