The Ayatollah Begs To Differ Part 7

His dismissal in late January of Javad Zarif, Iran's UN amba.s.sador, had been a signal to some that he still held some sway, for that highly sensitive post is always filled at the exclusive pleasure of the Supreme Leader, but the fact that the Leader had subsequently personally chosen the moderate Mohammad Khazaee-someone far closer to Khatami than to the president-to replace him raised new questions. The Supreme Leader himself of course had already addressed the rumors of his illness and even impending death in an appearance on state television, but former Hojjatoleslam and now Ayatollah Rafsanjani,1 on a visit to Qom, had recently rea.s.sured senior clerics and the nation that there were qualified individuals to a.s.sume the mantle of Supreme Leader-to some a gaffe that confirmed Ayatollah Khamenei's illness and to others a clumsy attempt to emphasize the continuity of the Islamic Republic in the face of external and internal threats, but at the very least an a.s.sertion of Rafsanjani's own power. It had been reported in the early days of the Ten-Day Dawn that President Ahmadinejad was also due to visit Qom and the various marja-e-taghlid ("sources of emulation," or Grand Ayatollahs) imminently, just as Ali Larijani had done in a much-photographed and symbolic visit with Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, but as the days pa.s.sed and he remained in Tehran, it became obvious to most Iranians that his attempt to ingratiate himself with the center of clerical power had been rebuffed. February 2007 marked some lonely days indeed for the proud and defiant president of Iran, but it couldn't matter to the Ten-Day Dawn. For Iran's national day, once the birthday of the Shah (and thus more a celebration of a man's vanity and conceit than of a nation), was now, like the Fourth of July for Americans, a day of nationalistic pride and a celebration of an independent nation. It could certainly not be about Ahmadinejad, or any other president for that matter, regardless of his popularity or accomplishments, and although the president would take center stage and make a speech, February 11 is for Iran, not for a person. on a visit to Qom, had recently rea.s.sured senior clerics and the nation that there were qualified individuals to a.s.sume the mantle of Supreme Leader-to some a gaffe that confirmed Ayatollah Khamenei's illness and to others a clumsy attempt to emphasize the continuity of the Islamic Republic in the face of external and internal threats, but at the very least an a.s.sertion of Rafsanjani's own power. It had been reported in the early days of the Ten-Day Dawn that President Ahmadinejad was also due to visit Qom and the various marja-e-taghlid ("sources of emulation," or Grand Ayatollahs) imminently, just as Ali Larijani had done in a much-photographed and symbolic visit with Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, but as the days pa.s.sed and he remained in Tehran, it became obvious to most Iranians that his attempt to ingratiate himself with the center of clerical power had been rebuffed. February 2007 marked some lonely days indeed for the proud and defiant president of Iran, but it couldn't matter to the Ten-Day Dawn. For Iran's national day, once the birthday of the Shah (and thus more a celebration of a man's vanity and conceit than of a nation), was now, like the Fourth of July for Americans, a day of nationalistic pride and a celebration of an independent nation. It could certainly not be about Ahmadinejad, or any other president for that matter, regardless of his popularity or accomplishments, and although the president would take center stage and make a speech, February 11 is for Iran, not for a person.

On Friday, February 9, a text message joke made the rounds of Iran's upwardly mobile cell phones, a now-standard practice in distributing licentious and antigovernment material. The Saudis, it read, had announced that the 22nd of Bahman (February 11), Iran's national holiday, would fall on Sat.u.r.day, February 10. Both a dig at Iran's ruling clergy cla.s.s, who regularly and obstinately announce major Islamic holidays a day or two later than the Saudis (who are, after all, the guardians of Islam's holiest sites and theoretically the defenders of the faith), and a dig at Iran's contrarian foreign policy, it was wildly popular and the source of much hilarity among those Iranians who would most certainly not be attending the festivities and rallies on that Sunday, the national holiday. But Iran's ruling cla.s.s cares little for the wealthy and secular elite, those whom foreign reporters come into contact with most, and those who are quickest to tell anyone who cares to listen that the Islamic Republic's days are numbered. Like proverbial ostriches with heads buried in the sand, and like my fellow guests at the party the night before, they spent the holiday skiing in resorts like Shemshak, on shopping trips to Dubai, or at home with friends watching illegal satellite broadcasts, rather than observing millions of their fellow citizens taking to the streets to proclaim their devotion and loyalty to their country and velayat-e-faqih, the very political concept that some of them insist is gasping its last breath.

And millions they were, at the mother of all rallies in a nation that has grown accustomed to the distraction of all too many government-sanctioned public gatherings. From early in the morning one could see men, women, and children marching along the streets of Tehran, miles from their destination, waving Iranian flags, and some holding banners, thoughtfully provided by the government, proclaiming their right to enjoy nuclear energy (in English, for the benefit of the foreign press and television cameras).

Ali Khatami, the former president's brother, picked me up from my house in downtown Tehran early, and driving through alleys and streets not yet closed, past cars double-and triple-parked, we made our way to an area filled with buses about four or five kilometers from Azadi Square-Tehran's Arc de Triomphe or Trafalgar Square-where the huge rally was to be held at midday. Ali himself triple-parked, careful to leave an exit route, and we walked the few blocks to Azadi Street, the main thoroughfare that had been lined with loudspeakers and was already filled with marchers who moved slowly toward the monument where President Ahmadinejad was to speak. The crowd on the sidewalk seemed to thicken rapidly, and walking soon slowed to a crawl. It was at a complete standstill by the time we reached the spot where former president Khatami stood outside a white SUV, surrounded by machine-gun-toting Revolutionary Guards, to say a few words to the crowd and the cameras. (By tradition, the Islamic Republic's senior clerics and dignitaries do not join the president on the podium or even enter the main square, but make short appearances on the sidelines of the ma.s.s rally to show their support for the revolution without upstaging the administration in power. The Supreme Leader himself never makes an appearance at the rally, which is, after all, in some ways a celebration of his and his clerics' authority.) And both Rafsanjani, who was elsewhere along the route, and Khatami could well have upstaged the beleaguered Ahmadinejad in 2007, whose very few posters were far outnumbered by those of the Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, who, more than any sitting president, represent the continuity of the Islamic Republic. As the crowd pressed in toward the beaming Khatami, he got into his car before his brother and I could say h.e.l.lo, and the crowd then rushed the vehicle, forcing it, with men standing on its roof, to maneuver with great difficulty onto a side street, crushing a few bodies, including mine, along the way. It disappeared to cries of "Khatami, Kahatami, we love you!" sung with both emotion and conviction, and if anyone had imagined that this was the national day for hard-liners and conservative supporters of the government only, the scene surrounding Khatami, a person some hard-liners had accused of wanting to dismantle the Islamic state, proved otherwise.

We caught our breath and continued along the sidewalk at a snail's pace, hearing the by-now-standard chants of "Nuclear energy is our obvious right," "Death to America," "Death to Israel," and "Death to the hypocrites" (MEK) every few minutes, and we were surrounded by many halfheartedly waving preprinted signs, in English, with a bright red check mark by "yes" for nuclear energy. The chants were shouted with some vigor and emotion but without anger, and lacked the conviction required of a literal interpretation. "Death to," in a society where an exclamation of surprise is "Khak-bar-saram" "Khak-bar-saram"-"May I be covered with dirt" (struck dead)-is rarely truly meant. We were still stuck on the sidewalk when the president started his speech, which was being broadcast along the route, and we were still a kilometer or so away from the square. The crowd could no longer move forward, even at a shuffle. Caught in a sea of people, I could do nothing but stand and listen to the president make his speech, moderate by his standards and evidence of sorts that the rumors that he'd been instructed to tone down the rhetoric were true. On the nuclear issue, he reiterated the long-standing Iranian position that the government desired negotiations and talks, but that uranium enrichment would not be suspended as a precondition. But he chose, rather than his belligerent and confrontational tone of the past, a more rational argument that questioned the logic of the U.S. position, which demanded Iran first do as it said before it would entertain any negotiations on the issue. "If we suspend enrichment," Ahmadinejad asked softly and to great applause, "then what is there to talk about?"

The crowd where I was standing, far less interested in his speech than in the spectacle of celebration, suddenly started moving backward, then forward, as if we were a human battering ram trying to break down the gates to the city. Women started screaming for the men to stop shoving, some of them trying to protect crying children they held tightly from being trampled, but the crush went on. Forward at a pace that would have meant falling headfirst were it not for the sea of bodies, and then backward, sideways, and forward again, with no crowd control or any police presence to ensure a modic.u.m of safety, we were being slowly crushed, but when the crowd decided to make an escape along a side street, I became truly worried. I could barely see Ali, a former president's chief of staff who himself was bobbing up and down, struggling to break free, and I wondered if he now regretted his modesty in keeping a low profile while in office, a profile that meant he was unrecognizable, despite his resemblance to his brother, to the people in the crowd who were shoving him with as much verve as they were shoving everyone else.

The street the crowd had decided upon for escape was as packed with people as Azadi Street was, and that crowd was trying just as hard to get to where we were as we we were trying to escape. The slightest panic, I thought, would have resulted in tragedy, but somehow the crowd on my side overwhelmed the side-street crowd, and like a great wave we crashed into them, scattering whoever was in our way. At this point there was no hope of making it onto the square, so I let myself be pushed and shoved down the street, and then, after I found a somewhat-battered Ali, we slowly made our way back to where he had parked, pa.s.sing people who were heading to the square and still shouting revolutionary slogans. I was sorry that I had been unable to enter the main square, but less sorry than I would have been had I missed hearing the "nuclear symphony," which unhappily never materialized. were trying to escape. The slightest panic, I thought, would have resulted in tragedy, but somehow the crowd on my side overwhelmed the side-street crowd, and like a great wave we crashed into them, scattering whoever was in our way. At this point there was no hope of making it onto the square, so I let myself be pushed and shoved down the street, and then, after I found a somewhat-battered Ali, we slowly made our way back to where he had parked, pa.s.sing people who were heading to the square and still shouting revolutionary slogans. I was sorry that I had been unable to enter the main square, but less sorry than I would have been had I missed hearing the "nuclear symphony," which unhappily never materialized.

For ten days the Islamic Revolution of 1979 had been replayed over and over on television, reminding Iranians who watched that for all their post-revolution worries the revolution itself, the once popular concept of a religious democracy, was alive and well. The claim by secular and uninterested Iranians, and echoed by ABC's Diane Sawyer, who was in the crowd the day I was, that thousands of people had been bused in by the government from other cities to bolster the numbers for the festivities was belied by the fact that in every other city in Iran, even smaller towns, huge numbers also showed up to celebrate their revolution-the evidence clear from nonstop television reports throughout the day.

I asked people gathered by a group of old, rusty munic.i.p.al buses parked at a roundabout, well away from Azadi Street, where they had come from to join the rally, and all said that they had been picked up at various points in the city. Ali Khatami, a former top official himself, explained that buses were indeed provided by the government, but more as a traffic-control issue, to ferry marchers to the square from predesignated points across the city, than anything else. At any rate, no one present had been forced to attend, not even schoolchildren or government employees, as evidenced by the full restaurants and cafes and busy sidewalks far away from the rally in the northern parts of the city that I retreated to after my bruising encounter with fervent supporters of the Islamic Revolution. But every year the 22nd of Bahman, the tenth day of the Ten-Day Dawn, affirms for many Iranians their faith in their nation and their revolution, if not in their president, and in their own peculiar form of democracy, a form of democracy that celebrates majority rule but increasingly, and despite occasional setbacks, allows the minority to quietly ignore the ma.s.ses. By skiing, by drinking, or by partying, as I did that very night at a high-rise apartment building in a duplex penthouse, where on one level an opium den had been set up in the library for the older men and a poker table and bar in the dining room for the younger men and women, who played, drank, and never once mentioned the Ten-Day Dawn or the Ayatollahs whose revolution it celebrates, a revolution that (with apologies to Gil Scott-Heron) will always always be televised. be televised.

Perhaps the booze-soaked furloughed political prisoner from Evin, the man who insisted to me that 80 percent of those born after the revolution had to be killed if there were to be another revolution, had a point, perverse as the way he made it might have been. For many of those in the majority of the population with no memory of a preIslamic Republic Iran, perhaps even 80 percent, those for whom patriotism means allegiance to the only republic they've ever known, the revolution wasn't just a revolution: it was the birth of their nation nation. The rally at Azadi Square is never an ordinary rally, yet another tedious propaganda affair in a country where the government is given to propaganda; and if we fear the black turbans who rule Iran, then surely we must fear those who rally too.

If patriotism, and perhaps only the false patriotism that Samuel Johnson may have been referring to, is indeed the last refuge of a scoundrel, then Iran is not bereft of scoundrels at the highest levels of government. They have their followers, sometimes many, but they are hardly as fearsome as they would like to think they are. A few months after the Ten-Day Dawn, on Friday, May 25, 2007, an interim prayer leader of Tehran, the archconservative cleric Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Khatami (no relation to former president Mohammad Khatami), gave a speech to the thousands gathered at the University of Tehran for Friday prayers. On Fridays, the Tehran prayers are where Iran's clerical leaders, in the social and political section of the sermon, outline their views. "Interim prayer leader," and there are a few of them, denotes that the official prayer leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not present that day, and of course he rarely is. Ahmad Khatami was giving an official response to continued statements in the spring of 2007 by U.S. officials regarding the possibility of the United States using force to stop Iran's nuclear program, and in particular a response to Vice President d.i.c.k Cheney, who had recently made an aggressive anti-Iran speech aboard an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, right on Iran's doorstep. Khatami's speech was translated and covered, as it always is, by IRNA (the official state-run Islamic Republic News Agency) exactly as follows (and I've left the English uncorrected, reflecting the government's persistently defiant use of incorrect English):

Khatami reminded the worshipers of US Vice President d.i.c.k Cheney's comment aboard a US warship in Persian Gulf, where he said that the presence of US warships in the Persian Gulf convey a clear message to United States friends and foes, adding, "We would not permit Iran to get access to nuclear arms, and in order to achieve that goal, all options are on the table."According to Political Desk reporter of IRNA, Hojjatoleslam Khatami added, "We tell this notorious and extremely corrupt individual you have repeated such words so often that one feels like vomiting when one hears them uttered anew, so why don't you try to say something new now?"The interim Friday prayer leader of Tehran, addressing the US officials, added, "Just as you bully, uttering such nonsense, you should be aware that the Iranian nation, too, has all options on the table for punching the United States on the mouth."He reiterated, "It is truly befitting to tell these narrow minded wretched figures, 'O little fly! The high peaks where eagles build nests are far above your flight alt.i.tude. You are just ruining your own reputation, yet, not really troubling us, either.'"Friday preacher of Tehran this week added, "Thanks Allah, this nation is a weathered one, and you (Americans), too, are not competent for committing such mischief, because you have not forgotten having received severe blows on the mouth from this nation continually for eight straight years."

Ta'arouf? Certainly not, and really more along the lines of "Who's your daddy?" sentiments, albeit without the implied s.e.xual-dominance innuendo. The less-than-comely Ahmad (who is probably fearsome only in the disquieting context of a s.e.xual encounter with him) was in fact engaging in the opposite of ta'arouf, but a companion to it in Persian public discourse: fiery rhetoric and flowery, often poetic, insults that lie to the other extreme of politesse are packed with gholov, and may be intended to be fearsome but rarely are. Shias have long been taught to not provoke their enemies, who in olden days were the Sunni majority surrounding them, and, as discussed before, taghiyeh, the permitted dissimulation or even outward lying to protect the person and the faith, is an example of Shia concerns with avoiding conflict that could mean the annihilation of the minority sect.

Although anonymity excuses the Persian from ta'arouf, and public speaking is the ant.i.thesis of anonymous behavior, Ahmad Khatami and others who make such speeches are speaking on behalf of the nation (or the clerical establishment) and against another nation, and the collective "we" makes them impersonal outbursts that some Iranian politicians today, with a sense of power that Shias haven't felt in centuries, believe appeal to the ma.s.ses of their supporters who are more accustomed to being the downtrodden and oppressed majority of society than a people that can strike back against any injustice. Punching or smacking the mouth, tou-dahany tou-dahany, is a Persian threat (really more insult) extraordinaire, one that IRNA seemed uninterested in giving an English equivalent for, as the speech was intended for a domestic audience exclusively, but it is not usually a literal expression of a desire to physically harm; it is more a form of braggadocio suggesting that there are ways of shutting a mouth that has uttered an insult or threat itself. Although the cleric's p.r.o.nouncement that the United States has "received severe blows on the mouth from this nation continually for eight [a mistranslation: it should have read twenty-eight] straight years" could be viewed by the more sinister-minded as an admission that Iran has physically harmed the United States, perhaps through terrorist proxies in Lebanon, for example, or in Africa and Saudi Arabia and more recently in Iraq, and a veiled threat that it can do so again, it in reality harks back to the days of the U.S. Emba.s.sy hostage crisis and Ayatollah Khomeini's famous statement, met with incredulity by many at the time, that the United States "cannot do a d.a.m.n thing."

What Ahmad Khatami was saying, in effect, was that Iran has weathered years of threats from and hostile behavior by the United States and, despite a stated desire on America's part to see the Islamic Republic fall, has been, and, more important, will continue to be, able to withstand any pressure from the world's greatest superpower. Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy?

The turbaned elite have, of course, if not punched America in the mouth, then certainly thumbed their noses at the country ever since the first days of the hostage crisis of 1979, and seemingly with impunity. Short of an all-out war, which the experience of Iraq seems to have told us and and the Iranians by no means guarantees victory to a vastly superior military force, it appears that the almost-thirty-year hostile att.i.tude and lack of meaningful relations between Iran and the United States (which have brought little advantage to either nation) are destined to continue for some time unless there are fundamental shifts in both American and Iranian foreign policy. the Iranians by no means guarantees victory to a vastly superior military force, it appears that the almost-thirty-year hostile att.i.tude and lack of meaningful relations between Iran and the United States (which have brought little advantage to either nation) are destined to continue for some time unless there are fundamental shifts in both American and Iranian foreign policy.

Why, many Americans wonder, do the black turbans and the many Iranians who support them hate the United States so much? a.n.a.lysts point to the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that replaced the democratically elected prime minister, Mossadeq, under a const.i.tutional and weak monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had fled the country for Rome, with an absolute dictatorship under that very same monarch. True, the Iranian people have long resented American interference in their affairs and the Ayatollahs have played on that sentiment, and every Iranian can tell you the story of the infamous CIA coup (that the British were only able to convince President Eisenhower was necessary because of a communist threat), but the United States has conspired in coups d'etat and supported tyrants elsewhere to the eventual forgiveness of the people and the patching up of relations. Why are Iranians different in that regard, say, from Chileans? Iranians are often adroitly reminded by their leaders that when their soon-to-be-deposed prime minister Mossadeq nationalized the Iranian oil industry, in effect demanding their right to the profits from their own oil, the British responded publicly, and at the UN no less, that Iran's exercise of its right was a "threat to the security of the world," words that have been repeated by the United States in response to Iran exercising its right, haq, as far as Iranians are concerned, to produce nuclear fuel.

To Iranians, since the eighteenth century, Western empires (and Russia) have simply refused to stop considering Iran theirs to play with as they like, rewarding it for supplication and punishing it for disobedience. And the United States, which has long taken over from Britain as the world's greatest power, is by definition the one power that is most likely to dictate to Iran and exploit its resources to the detriment of its people. Their country having never been a colony, Iranians have had to constantly wonder about the intentions of greater powers with respect to their affairs, and, having had to slowly a.s.sert their rights as a sovereign nation in the face of resistance from the West, they are notoriously conspiracy-minded when it comes to international relations. Iranians never made the black-and-white choices between "colonized" and "independent" that other Third World countries have had to, and as such they live in a constant state of worry that their nation can, almost without their knowing it, revert to its long and shameful role as va.s.sal to a greater power in all but name. And the clerics take every opportunity to remind their people that without them, patriotic Iranians guarding Shia, and therefore Iranian Iranian, Islam and and their haq, their fear is likely to come true. Great Britain long figured as the power that most worried Iranians, and in fact today many Iranians still believe that the English are behind everything, good or bad, in Iran, but the United States looms large, even more so since the demise of the Soviet Union, as the world power that most covets the "Persian prize." The Ayatollahs and Hojjatoleslams, some of whose turbaned forefathers the British knew well and used to great advantage in their manipulation of Persian politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, may cleverly stoke the inherent paranoia of their citizens, but they have received some (perhaps unintended) a.s.sistance from various U.S. administrations, particularly that of George W. Bush. their haq, their fear is likely to come true. Great Britain long figured as the power that most worried Iranians, and in fact today many Iranians still believe that the English are behind everything, good or bad, in Iran, but the United States looms large, even more so since the demise of the Soviet Union, as the world power that most covets the "Persian prize." The Ayatollahs and Hojjatoleslams, some of whose turbaned forefathers the British knew well and used to great advantage in their manipulation of Persian politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, may cleverly stoke the inherent paranoia of their citizens, but they have received some (perhaps unintended) a.s.sistance from various U.S. administrations, particularly that of George W. Bush.

If in the American popular imagination it is believed, as it usually is, that politicians will sometimes lie to their own people, then one has to try to imagine how Iranians generally view American political discourse on Iran. Lies Lies, the Ayatollahs, and often other politicians, will tell them, all lies. And a perfect recent example of those lies, at least to Iranians, was the announcements in late 2006 and early 2007 by the U.S. military in Iraq that roadside bombs and other munitions used to kill Americans were manufactured in Iran. Little proof was offered, except for at one press conference where unexploded bombs and sh.e.l.ls were displayed with markings, in a perfect English lacking even on unfortunate Iranian road signs, that allegedly showed they were made in Iran.2 Except the dates of manufacture stenciled onto the bombs were not only in English but in the American form-that is, month, day, year-rather than in the Iranian (and rest of the world's) standard format of day, month, year. That the Iranians would be sending weapons into Iraq conveniently and obligingly labeled not only with their country of origin in English but also with the date of manufacture designed so as not to confuse the Americans (who, one supposes, the Iranians know are short on Farsi interpreters) beggars belief, as Javad Zarif, the Iranian amba.s.sador to the UN at the time, told me he had complained in one of his speeches. But few American a.n.a.lysts, and even fewer reporters, including those with experience in the Middle East, questioned out loud this apparently clumsily manufactured evidence, leaving many Iranians to wonder yet again about real U.S. intentions with respect to their country. Except the dates of manufacture stenciled onto the bombs were not only in English but in the American form-that is, month, day, year-rather than in the Iranian (and rest of the world's) standard format of day, month, year. That the Iranians would be sending weapons into Iraq conveniently and obligingly labeled not only with their country of origin in English but also with the date of manufacture designed so as not to confuse the Americans (who, one supposes, the Iranians know are short on Farsi interpreters) beggars belief, as Javad Zarif, the Iranian amba.s.sador to the UN at the time, told me he had complained in one of his speeches. But few American a.n.a.lysts, and even fewer reporters, including those with experience in the Middle East, questioned out loud this apparently clumsily manufactured evidence, leaving many Iranians to wonder yet again about real U.S. intentions with respect to their country.

Democracy, or the lack of it, is in Iran inextricably intertwined with Iran's external relations. Suspicion of foreigners is nothing new, but the mullahs have exploited that suspicion better than any of their predecessor Shahs, who were, by contrast, seen as mere tools of the great powers. In Iran, the turn to Islam as a political system stemmed partly from the notion that Western political systems, liberal democracies and communism, were less than desirable within the country's own culture, a culture that is, it's true, proud beyond the comprehension of most Westerners. Most Persians at the time, and with encouragement from their Ayatollahs, desired a political and social life that was dominated neither by an imported Judeo-Christian tradition (America and Europe) nor by an atheistic tradition (Marxism), and many Iranians, particularly the religious, had long felt that the socialism that was viewed as a significantly better and fairer form of communism was in fact the Islamic political tradition, at least in its Shia form, abandoned by the rulers of Muslim nations.

The Iranian revolution of 1979 was a clear rejection of non-Iranian political concepts, and although rage and animosity toward the United States in its aftermath were consequences of this, it was hardly understood that the real fear of Iranians at the time was that the United States, the most powerful country in the world, would simply not allow a political system to develop that didn't mirror its own. What the Iranians were saying, in effect, was: "Leave us alone, and if you don't, we'll find ways to make your life miserable." Almost thirty years later, the Iranians, although seemingly far more "moderate" in the eyes of the West, are still saying the same thing. When Shirin Ebadi, the n.o.bel Prize winner, rejects foreign interference in the affairs of her country and refuses to denounce Islam, some in the West are alarmed or believe that she is afraid of being jailed. Ms. Ebadi is hardly afraid of jail, having spent time there, but she probably understands that what the West wants Muslim so-called moderates to say and to promote is merely a vision of a secular culture imported from the West, a vision that doesn't carry much weight with a people that is moving, albeit very slowly, toward a democracy that is self-defined and that may not be recognizable to Westerners, accustomed to defining democracy as either liberal or not a democracy at all. But given that Iran has, even within its power structure, many who are working toward the goal of a more democratic political system, those who push for sudden, drastic change or change encouraged by foreign powers have little chance of garnering much support from ordinary Iranians. The last Shah of Iran tried everything to discredit Ayatollah Khomeini, whom he had exiled way back in 1963, and the other mullahs who resisted his autocratic rule. The one accusation that he could not not make with any credibility, and the one that would have had the most effect in discrediting the Ayatollahs, was that they were tools or agents of foreigners looking to gain influence over Persia. make with any credibility, and the one that would have had the most effect in discrediting the Ayatollahs, was that they were tools or agents of foreigners looking to gain influence over Persia.

When Akbar Ganji, perhaps the most famous Iranian dissident, traveled to Europe and America on an extended trip upon his release from prison, he refused, on more than one occasion, an invitation to the White House. It was not, as some might think, a personal snub of George Bush; had even Dennis Kucinich been improbably in residence, Ganji would have refused him too. And his refusal to meet with any American officials was not because he feared being imprisoned by the state when he returned home; rather, he feared that the people, whom every dissident claims to speak for, would forever brand him as an illegitimate tool of the foreigners.

When I arrived in Tehran in the summer of 2005, the hunger-striking Ganji had been moved from his cell in Evin prison to a hospital, and his condition appeared to be critical. As a journalist who had dared reveal the government's hand in the murders of five writers and intellectuals in 1998, he had been arrested in 2000 after he attended a conference in Berlin on political and social reform in Iran, and in 2001 he was sentenced to six years for writing about matters of "national security" and spreading propaganda against the Islamic system. The political murders of 1998 had always been a.s.sumed by the public to be the work of government agents, but when Ganji first publicly exposed the connection, at a time when Khatami and his reform government had enabled press freedoms unknown in Iran under the Shahs or the mullahs, the Intelligence Ministry claimed that the murderers were "rogue agents." Ganji's expose, however, detailed more than a few "rogue agents" acting on their own, and his finger pointed all the way up to the extremely powerful former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pillar of the Islamic regime. Embarra.s.sing as Ganji's writings were to Rafsanjani personally, the conservatives were far more concerned with the stability of Islamic rule, and they moved quickly to curtail press freedoms over the objections of Khatami and other reformists (whose weakness in the face of the hard-liners' pressures contributed to the eventual public dissatisfaction with the reform camp).

In 2005, Ganji, who refused to renounce his writings and apologize to the Supreme Leader in exchange for leniency, had begun a hunger strike to protest his detention and bring attention to political prisoners in Iran, and the government of President Khatami had implored him (as Ali Khatami had a.s.sured me) to quit, especially since he was already very close to his release date. But I was taken aback, once in Iran, by the almost complete lack of concern, even among intellectuals who are quick to decry the lack of press freedoms, for the defiant dissident. Although much had been made of his plight and his struggle in the West (he was made an honorary member of PEN), in Tehran his cause was less than celebre. His bravery in calling in July, during the presidential elections, for the Supreme Leader to "go" in a letter widely read on the Internet (intentionally evocative of Khomeini's simple call for the Shah to "go") was the talk of many a party in middle-cla.s.s Tehran, but Iranians by and large ignored the Ganji issue. Some Iranians even questioned his bravery-all the attention from the West, including from George Bush, they said, guaranteed him immunity from harm-and others, even while admiring his stand, thought his hunger strike to be hopeless and therefore pointless, particularly since he had served most of his sentence anyway and would have soon been released from prison. Even when Ma.s.soud Moqadasi, the judge who had presided over his trial and conviction, was a.s.sa.s.sinated a week after I arrived in Tehran in a rare instance of political violence, there seemed to be no expressions of delight among reform-minded Iranians.

Why? Certainly some viewed Ganji suspiciously because he had been a part of the system himself, a former Revolutionary Guard who had served the Islamic Revolution at its most terrifyingly intolerant early stage, a personal history that for those, openly dissident or not, with a deep hatred of the mullahs could not be redeemed. Others felt that he was grandstanding, and of course there were always those conspiracy-minded Iranians who believed that he had to be an agent of the West, witting or unwitting, since he seemed to receive all the attention outside the country while others just as deserving were suffering as much (or had suffered worse) without even a peep by any foreigner.

But the reality is that ordinary Iranians, despite what we're told about how much they dislike their government, do not seem to desire a revolution; rather, there are those who are politically minded who want democratic change, even if it is gradual, and there are those for whom the only real changes that are important are economic. Revolution, for a people that remembers the last one all too well, entails too much uncertainty, and Ganji was for many simply too revolutionary. Though he has been keen to emphasize that he is for democratic change from within Iran, his headline-grabbing hunger strike and his radical words challenged the very legitimacy of the Islamic Republic and have given him a revolutionary aura. Perhaps if he had died in prison, or had been executed, Ganji could have become a dangerous rallying force for opponents to the Islamic regime, but the government was far too shrewd to allow that to happen. With the knowledge that a generation earlier the executions of Khosro Golsorkhi and Keramat Daneshian, two poets who had been improbably accused of plotting to kidnap the crown prince by the Shah's government, had been one of the sparks that ignited the populist revolution of 1979, the Islamic government had no intention of creating a martyr who could most influence the youths, as Golsorkhi, a Che Guevaralike figure for young Iranians in 1974, had done. At the time the Shah, eager to both intimidate his rivals and show the world that his rule was based on law, chose to allow televised broadcasts of Golsorkhi's military tribunal, a colossal mistake that accomplished neither goal. Golsorkhi recited poetry, what Persians consider their highest art, throughout his trial; he made a mockery of the military judges; and his bravery, including his refusal to beg the Shah for clemency (or to wear a blindfold at his execution), only served to make him a hero and a symbol of the Shah's merciless dictatorship. (A doc.u.mentary film on the trial of Golsorkhi has been shown in art house theaters throughout the world since the revolution, and is still riveting to watch.3) Ganji, intentionally or not, evoked Golsorkhi in his steadfast refusal to admit any crime, his calls for democratic rule, and his defiance in not begging for forgiveness, but the government's releasing him from prison and allowing him to travel abroad freely, as it well knew, deflated any chance, however remote, of his someday becoming a martyr for a new revolution.

A slightly different att.i.tude prevailed in Iran two years later (when Ganji had long been released from prison and was still busy touring the United States and Europe), when Iranian-American academics, a reporter for the U.S.-run Radio Farda, and NGO representatives were arrested in Iran on charges of espionage. Foreign journalists remarked on how little coverage or sympathy the Iranian-American cases received inside Iran while making headlines in the rest of the world (which may be one reason why Haleh Esfandiari, who had access to the local news, remarked upon her release and return to the United States that one of her greatest fears while in prison was that the world had forgotten her). Iranians, even reformists and intellectuals, indeed seemed to show very little sympathy for the plight of the detainees, certainly less than for Ganji, but it was not out of any fear. Many Iranians simply felt less than sympathetic because they viewed the Iranian-Americans as a privileged lot-Iranians who lived abroad in luxury (with foreign pa.s.sports no less!) and who suffered none of the travails of living and struggling day to day under a difficult system, as domestic dissidents and political activists do, but who nonetheless felt that they had a right to opinions on the future of Iran. These were not Iranians who had chosen to stay through the worst of times, as my Iranian friend, no fan of the Islamic government, who had had stayed so fittingly put it, revealing the value Iranians place on what they believe to be stayed so fittingly put it, revealing the value Iranians place on what they believe to be true true patriotism. Shirin Ebadi, for example, the n.o.bel laureate lawyer who often represents the most high-profile political cases (and whom I have heard referred to as a "political ambulance chaser" by precisely the reformist and anti-authoritarian intellectuals who ought to be her biggest fans), garners far more public support when she represents ordinary women activists, or other often-ignored domestic dissidents, than when she takes on the cases of those who are the least likely to suffer prison sentences in anonymity. patriotism. Shirin Ebadi, for example, the n.o.bel laureate lawyer who often represents the most high-profile political cases (and whom I have heard referred to as a "political ambulance chaser" by precisely the reformist and anti-authoritarian intellectuals who ought to be her biggest fans), garners far more public support when she represents ordinary women activists, or other often-ignored domestic dissidents, than when she takes on the cases of those who are the least likely to suffer prison sentences in anonymity.

On a few occasions in Tehran, when I have expressed political opinions not to the liking of those who truly loathe the mullahs, I have been admonished with the expression "Nafas-et az jay-eh garm meeyad"- "Nafas-et az jay-eh garm meeyad"-"Your breath emanates from a warm place," meaning that someone who lives in that "warm place," the free West, really has no right to an opinion on Iran at all. It is perhaps for this reason that Iranian dissidents abroad, or exile groups intent on regime change, have had so little success in gaining any measure of popularity inside Iran. Their satellite television broadcasts are watched often enough, sometimes disdainfully and with intent to mock, but the very idea that Iranians in the diaspora might hold the solution to Iran's political problems is laughable to most. Of course the level of support they receive even in their own countries of residence, their bases of operations if you will, might be indicative of the hopelessness of their ambitions.

When President Ahmadinejad made his first trip to the United States in the immediate aftermath of his election, an election that exiled Iranians had encouraged their compatriots to boycott via television and the Internet, he said at a breakfast meeting with journalists (where I was present) that he had intended to stop by the ma.s.sive protests he had been told were to occur at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the UN in New York, and to even speak to the Iranians a.s.sembled there and hear what they had to say. He said he drove by in his limousine, but when he saw the pitifully small handful of protesters, he decided they weren't worth talking to. Ahmadinejad may have been dishonest, or more accurately using ta'arouf, in expressing a desire to speak to Iranians who were against the Islamic regime, but he clearly savored the moment when he could, in the presence of American journalists, point out how preposterous the idea was that exiled Iranians, some with influence in Washington, might be the catalysts for a change in the Iranian regime.

I had gone to the demonstration myself and had been surprised not only at the lethargic turnout of two groups, one pro-Shah and the other pro-MEK, but also at the incongruous attendance of many obviously out-of-place and even indigent Americans in the MEK contingent, some wearing brand-new antiIslamic Republic T-shirts, contrasting sharply with their otherwise cast-off Salvation Army attire. (I asked a few why they were there, and one man, missing most of his teeth and the laces on his well-worn boots, and badly in need of a shower, admitted that he had been lured there in a bus from near the Bowery Mission with the promise of fifteen dollars and the T-shirt.) Reza Pahlavi, the man who would be Shah, was not present himself when I visited, but his face was on the placards his supporters held high for motorists pa.s.sing by to see. The fifty or so royalists, Shah-philes if you will, in keeping with their aristocratic sense of themselves, were enthusiastic but did not shout or yell, vulgar as that might be seen to be, and Ahmadinejad, if he did drive by, must have given a scornful sn.i.g.g.e.r.

It is perhaps ordinary Iranians' views on democracy and political issues that reflect their ambivalence toward the people we in the West believe to be working to make the country a democracy more along the lines of a Western model. Iran is not a totalitarian state; Iranians have a good measure of political freedom, at least compared with many Third World countries, and there is often lively public debate on what we might presume would be sensitive political issues. There may be tens or even hundreds of political prisoners in the notorious Evin prison, but there are also plenty of public figures opposed to the ruling clergy who state their views with relative freedom. But what many Iranians want most, if they are young, are social freedoms and, if they are older, a better economy. Politics, and an idealized political system, are simply not the overwhelming concerns of most ordinary Iranians who are struggling to better their lives, and those for whom they are, the intellectual elite who love nothing more than discussing politics at every opportunity, are, despite their inflated sense of relevance or influence, better at talking among themselves than at galvanizing the people into a real opposition. And nothing demonstrated this fact better than the reformists' dismal showing in the elections that brought President Ahmadinejad to power.

An ambivalence toward political activism we might think appropriate to the young is in evidence in Elahieh, one of the most fashionable districts of Tehran, where there's a busy hamburger stand called, without irony (a word that in any event has no good translation in Farsi), Bobby Sands Hamburger. Bobby Sands, the IRA political prisoner who starved himself to death in a British prison in 1981, also has a street named for him in Tehran: formerly Winston Churchill Boulevard, it runs conveniently beside the British Emba.s.sy and is the automobile access to the compound but, in true uncaring government fashion, is misspelled on signs and on maps variously as "Babi Sandez" or "Boby Sendz," somewhat defeating its purpose in tweaking the noses of British diplomats as they enter and leave their offices. In 2005, while Shirin Ebadi was representing Akbar Ganji, she had been told by the government that her client's hunger strike was illegal, and Ebadi, who does does understand irony, had asked for a clarification. A nation that names a street after a hunger striker, she had famously argued and been quoted in the papers, could hardly be in a position to outlaw the practice. Needless to say, the judiciary did not issue the clarification she requested. understand irony, had asked for a clarification. A nation that names a street after a hunger striker, she had famously argued and been quoted in the papers, could hardly be in a position to outlaw the practice. Needless to say, the judiciary did not issue the clarification she requested.

The Bobby Sands burger joint was crowded with young boys and girls on the night I visited, in the midst of Ganji's hunger strike and as he was wasting away, but none of them seemed to care very much about him. I asked a few people about their concerns that the new government of Ahmadinejad may crack down on many of the liberties granted them in the Khatami years. "Granted?" one young man snorted as he munched on a Bobby Sands special. "Nothing was given to us, not by Khatami or any one else. We fought for our freedoms. Beaten, imprisoned, and hara.s.sed by the police, we took them back. Do you think we'll ever let them take them away?" Spoken like a true revolutionary indeed, but he wasn't talking about political freedom, freedom of the press, or being able to criticize the government-freedoms that to one degree or another were ushered in under Khatami. He certainly wasn't talking about the freedom to go on a hunger strike; what he was talking about was being able to chat with a girl, exchange a phone number, and maybe dress as he pleases (all of which he was doing). Being able to watch satellite TV and bootleg DVDs. Or being able to drink and party at home, or hang out with girls at coffee shops like the Doors, an inviting place downtown with a large photo of Jim Morrison on what would be the bar if there were any booze, and typical of the many coffee shops that Iranian youths hang out in. And s.e.x? Many young Iranians manage to have girlfriends or boyfriends, many have s.e.x quietly and discreetly, and for those men who are single for whatever reason, there are always the prost.i.tutes. In recent years prost.i.tution has become so widespread in Iran that even the state-controlled press mentions it regularly and politicians rail against its spread. On the night after Ahmadinejad's swearing in, prost.i.tutes were out in full force in Vanak Square, near the hotel I was staying in on that trip. How, I wondered, can one tell them apart from the girls who have merely pushed back their headscarves a few inches and applied a little too much makeup? "Twenty-six years in an Islamic Republic," my Iranian companion who was giving me a ride home told me, "and you can tell."

The dynamics of Iranian politics, which make the Islamic Republic a difficult target for regime-change proponents, can be witnessed a few miles farther north of Vanak Square at the Center for Strategic Research, a quasi-governmental organization, which occupies a striking blue gla.s.s modern high-rise in Niavaran, one of the northernmost and wealthiest districts of Tehran. The center, a think-tank-like arm of the Expediency Council (whose chairman is Ayatollah Rafsanjani), employs a legion of former government employees, allies of Rafsanjani and Khatami, who have found themselves unemployable in President Ahmadinejad's administration. The Expediency Council is one of those governmental bodies that mystifies Westerners; it was set up originally to settle disputes between the elected parliament, the Majles, and the Guardian Council (the body that ensures the principles of Islam are adhered to by the Majles and also vets candidates running for election, theoretically on their Islamic qualifications), but its true power lies more in its advisory role to the Supreme Leader, who in 2005 delegated some of his own authority to the council-granting it supervisory powers over all branches of the government of President Ahmadinejad-some think as a consolation prize demanded by Rafsanjani after suffering his humiliating defeat at Ahmadinejad's hands.

A former amba.s.sador under the previous administration invited me to a lunch there one day in early 2007, a political salon of sorts where former government officials who now presumably do strategic research for the benefit of one or another branch of the government (though certainly not the president, who couldn't be less interested in the views, strategic or not, of any of his rivals) gather in a capacious conference room every Thursday to exchange ideas and, of course, discuss politics. Ha.s.san Rowhani, the center's highest-profile strategist, former chief nuclear negotiator in Khatami's regime, a close confidant of the Supreme Leader and and Rafsanjani, a member of the a.s.sembly of Experts, and a potential rival to Ahmadinejad in the next presidential elections, does not partic.i.p.ate in the salon; perhaps he knows that if he did, it would take on an uncomfortable hue of intrigue against an already paranoid presidency. Rafsanjani, a member of the a.s.sembly of Experts, and a potential rival to Ahmadinejad in the next presidential elections, does not partic.i.p.ate in the salon; perhaps he knows that if he did, it would take on an uncomfortable hue of intrigue against an already paranoid presidency.

The conference room where we gathered was on the first floor (or "1th," as was indicated by signs on the pillars, perhaps a strategic strategic goof) of the building. A stream of attendants laid out steaming platters and plates of rice, kebabs, stews, and salads on the huge table around which we sat. The conversation was interrupted every few minutes by someone's cell phone ring, usually an unlikely tone such as the "William Tell Overture" or a Muzak version of the theme from goof) of the building. A stream of attendants laid out steaming platters and plates of rice, kebabs, stews, and salads on the huge table around which we sat. The conversation was interrupted every few minutes by someone's cell phone ring, usually an unlikely tone such as the "William Tell Overture" or a Muzak version of the theme from t.i.tanic t.i.tanic (also evidently the most popular song in elevators throughout the Islamic Republic), and at one point it seemed that half the room was talking on phones between mouthfuls rather than listening to any of the conversations that started and stopped in fits. But as the plates were cleared of the last morsels, talk turned to Ahmadinejad and his hated government, which had put these men out of work. "Do you realize," one man said, "that he's even tightened the customs office? I used to be able to just call the customs depot and have personal stuff I'm importing cleared through, but just last week I was forced to actually drive down there!" Others shook their heads in dismay that Ahmadinejad's anticorruption drive had inconvenienced one of their own. "He's serious about this business," the man continued, shaking his head. (also evidently the most popular song in elevators throughout the Islamic Republic), and at one point it seemed that half the room was talking on phones between mouthfuls rather than listening to any of the conversations that started and stopped in fits. But as the plates were cleared of the last morsels, talk turned to Ahmadinejad and his hated government, which had put these men out of work. "Do you realize," one man said, "that he's even tightened the customs office? I used to be able to just call the customs depot and have personal stuff I'm importing cleared through, but just last week I was forced to actually drive down there!" Others shook their heads in dismay that Ahmadinejad's anticorruption drive had inconvenienced one of their own. "He's serious about this business," the man continued, shaking his head.

"That's not all," piped in a round and balding man, finishing a phone conversation by shutting his flip phone with a decisive snap while still noisily chewing on a piece of chicken. "Do you know anyone who wants an almost-new Mercedes S?"

"Why?" a chorus of voices responded.

"Ten million tomans tomans!" he said incredulously (about eleven thousand dollars, and one-tenth the going market rate). "But you can't get plates." Sounds of "tsk, tsk" echoed in the room. "Maybe you can just wait this thing out," he continued, shrugging his shoulders and reaching for another kebab. Ahmadinejad's anticorruption drive had, seemingly, driven the price of stolen cars, usually from Dubai or other Gulf states, way down, because there was no longer a way to register the vehicles, not even with once-common bribes and influence. The conversation continued with indignant stories of how difficult life had become under a new administration, and I wondered if Ahmadinejad, if he could hear these men, would be slapping his thighs with delight at how he had not only shut them out of government but deprived them of what they thought was their right to a privileged life. But despite their loss of real political power, these men were still very much part of the ruling cla.s.s of Iran, and they all believed that their situations could only be temporary. They were very much against men such as Ahmadinejad, either for rational reasons of opposition to hard-line policies or for less virtuous reasons of self-interest, but they could never be recruited to a cause against the Islamic Republic.

As I left the building that day, I couldn't help but think of my father's friend Mr. N., a former diplomat in the Shah's regime who had taken me to a very different lunch at the Diplomatic Club a week before. Mr. N. is, like everyone a.s.sociated with the Shah's regime, most definitely not part of the ruling cla.s.s, and never will be, but unlike so many members of the ancien regime, he continues to live in Iran and even take lunch at the Diplomatic Club, an outpost of a Foreign Ministry that one would suspect prefers to have nothing to do with him. Mr. N. has few contemporaries in Tehran to lunch with, unlike the men at the Center for Strategic Research, let alone the opportunity to regularly complain with friends about their loss of privilege. Mr. N. was recalled to Tehran from a foreign posting after the revolution of 1979, and he continued to show up for work every day at the Foreign Ministry, in a suit and tie, until he was finally forced into early retirement less than a year later.

He recalled for me his worst days at work, which had nothing to do with being hara.s.sed by revolutionaries who had taken over the ministry. No, it was during the U.S. hostage crisis, when Bruce Laingen, the U.S. charge d'affaires (who had been visiting the Foreign Ministry when students overran the emba.s.sy), was being held captive, for his own safety, the Iranians argued, at the ministry building. Mr. N. had to cross a courtyard and quadrant every day to get to his office, and Laingen would often be at a window looking straight out in his direction, but Mr. N. would hold a cup of coffee and a newspaper and walk on, pretending to be juggling the two as he pa.s.sed Laingen, just so that he could avoid waving at him and acknowledging a fellow diplomat. "The poor man," he said to me. "I felt absolutely awful every single morning. He didn't even have the comfort of receiving a dignified wave!" Mr. N. still wears a suit and tie every single day, sometimes a hat too, making him highly conspicuous in a society where ties are frowned upon as symbols of Western decadence. The suits are probably the same suits he had at the time of the revolution, for they are all cut in the late-1970s style, but perhaps Mr. N.'s fashion sense, for someone who has rarely gone abroad since his permanent return to Iran almost thirty years ago, is simply frozen in 1979.

Mr. N., who drives around Tehran in an old Peugeot but probably shouldn't be driving at all, and certainly not in a city like Tehran, picked me up one Friday morning and with much difficulty-including stopping in the middle of a busy freeway, getting out of the car, and asking directions of surprised and honking drivers-drove me to the far northern reaches of the city, where the Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Club is located. Built at the urging of the former amba.s.sador Sadeq Kharrazi, the ardent bespoke-suit-wearing reformist who tried to infuse the ministry with some of the elegance of its past, the club is shunned by the most conservative allies of Ahmadinejad but attracts diplomats, their families, and the odd mullah to its beautiful grounds and sumptuous buffet lunches.

We sat alone at a table in the expansive dining room, overlooking the vast city of Tehran through floor-to-ceiling windows, Mr. N. the only one in the room wearing a tie, and we comfortably talked politics without lowering our voices to a whisper. Other tables were filled with stubble-faced men in ill-fitting jackets, women in scarves and hijab, and unruly children who banged into the gla.s.s windows as they played noisily while their parents dined. If Mr. N. was aware of the stares we received, he didn't show it, and the maitre d' was uncommonly courteous to him, but as others in the dining room table-hopped to say h.e.l.lo to one another, we were conspicuously left alone. But Mr. N., the least privileged but by far the most elegant man in the room, was unperturbed, and as he finished his meal, he fell silent. He stared out the windows at his beloved city, and I wondered what this dignified man, someone who had refused the opportunity to leave his country and start a new life elsewhere like many of his contemporaries, someone who continued to live his life exactly as he thought he should without fear of the black turbans, someone who might have at one time been recruited to a strong democratic movement, was thinking. I didn't ask, but then again, I didn't need to.

"Yeki-bood; yeki-nabood." Other than G.o.d, there was no One. Islam was never supposed to have a clergy; in fact there is no "church" in mainstream Islam, and part of the appeal of the Koran for believers is that it is the word of G.o.d Himself, and therefore not subject to interpretation by man. Except, for Shias, by the Ayatollahs. Shia Islam, the overwhelming majority sect in Iran, a less-overwhelming majority in Iraq and Bahrain, and a large segment of the fractured religious makeup of Lebanon, has both a church Other than G.o.d, there was no One. Islam was never supposed to have a clergy; in fact there is no "church" in mainstream Islam, and part of the appeal of the Koran for believers is that it is the word of G.o.d Himself, and therefore not subject to interpretation by man. Except, for Shias, by the Ayatollahs. Shia Islam, the overwhelming majority sect in Iran, a less-overwhelming majority in Iraq and Bahrain, and a large segment of the fractured religious makeup of Lebanon, has both a church and and a clergy. Ayatollahs, those "signs of G.o.d," are in some ways the Shia equivalent of Catholic cardinals. There is no pope-like figure in Shia Islam, however, although the most senior Ayatollahs, the Grand Ayatollahs, hold positions of respect and authority not dissimilar to the authority of a living pope, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, or, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury. They are men and not considered divinely appointed (and certainly not divine-not even the Prophet was divine, according to Islam), but they are men who instruct others to behave according to how they believe G.o.d wishes. Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic and the one man responsible for making his t.i.tle a household word, wasn't Iran's first political cleric; he was merely its most successful. a clergy. Ayatollahs, those "signs of G.o.d," are in some ways the Shia equivalent of Catholic cardinals. There is no pope-like figure in Shia Islam, however, although the most senior Ayatollahs, the Grand Ayatollahs, hold positions of respect and authority not dissimilar to the authority of a living pope, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, or, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury. They are men and not considered divinely appointed (and certainly not divine-not even the Prophet was divine, according to Islam), but they are men who instruct others to behave according to how they believe G.o.d wishes. Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic and the one man responsible for making his t.i.tle a household word, wasn't Iran's first political cleric; he was merely its most successful.

Much has been written about the Shia split from mainstream Sunni Islam over thirteen hundred years ago, and the narrative often centers on the seminal event of the Battle of Karbala and Hossein's martyrdom-what is dramatically commemorated at Ashura every year. It may be the simple story of what Shias believe to be Hossein's just cause against the unjust Yazid, but it is really a sort of David and Goliath tale where Goliath wins, and it is what forms the Shia worldview-a worldview particularly suited to Persian sensibilities, formed as they have been by centuries of perceived injustices to their nation and to themselves. The modern Shia world had in Ayatollah Khomeini its first David who defeated a Goliath (the Shah), and a David who stood up to another,