[theolein]

In this NYTimes Op-Ed piece (log:macnn, pass:macnn), the author, having recently done his own little tour of Iran, discovers some interesting and surprising things:

1. The Iranians generally dislike their government.
2. The Iranians generally are more supportive of the US than just about anyone else.
3. Pirated editions of Hillary Clinton are only being outsold by pirated editions of Harry Potter.
4. There is a better chance that the Iranian Regime will collapse under the weight of its own unpopularity than that there will be a pro-western regime in Iraq.

Finally, I've found a pro-American country.

Everywhere I've gone in Iran, with one exception, people have been exceptionally friendly and fulsome in their praise for the United States, and often for President Bush as well. Even when I was detained a couple of days ago in the city of Isfahan for asking a group of young people whether they thought the Islamic revolution had been a mistake (they did), the police were courteous and let me go after an apology.

They apologized; I didn't.

On my first day in Tehran, I dropped by the "Den of Spies," as the old U.S. Embassy is now called. It's covered with ferocious murals denouncing America as the "Great Satan" and the "archvillain of nations" and showing the Statue of Liberty as a skull (tour the "Den of Spies" here).

Then I stopped to chat with one of the Revolutionary Guards now based in the complex. He was a young man who quickly confessed that his favorite movie is "Titanic." "If I could manage it, I'd go to America tomorrow," he said wistfully.

He paused and added, "To hell with the mullahs."

In the 1960's and 1970's, the U.S. spent millions backing a pro-Western modernizing shah � and the result was an outpouring of venom that led to our diplomats' being held hostage. Since then, Iran has been ruled by mullahs who despise everything we stand for � and now people stop me in the bazaar to offer paeans to America as well as George Bush.

Partly because being pro-American is a way to take a swipe at the Iranian regime, anything American, from blue jeans to "Baywatch," is revered. At the bookshops, Hillary Clinton gazes out from three different pirated editions of her autobiography.

`It's a best seller, though it's not selling as well as Harry Potter," said Heidar Danesh, a bookseller in Tehran. "The other best-selling authors are John Grisham, Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel."

Young Iranians keep popping the question, "So how can I get to the U.S.?" I ask why they want to go to a nation denounced for its "disgustingly sick promiscuous behavior," but that turns out to be a main attraction. And many people don't believe a word of the Iranian propaganda.

"We've learned to interpret just the opposite of things on TV because it's all lies," said Odan Seyyid Ashrafi, a 20-year-old university student. "So if it says America is awful, maybe that means it's a great place to live."

Indeed, many Iranians seem convinced that the U.S. military ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are going great, and they say this with more conviction than your average White House spokesman.

One opinion poll showed that 74 percent of Iranians want a dialogue with the U.S. � and the finding so irritated the authorities that they arrested the pollster. Iran is also the only Muslim country I know where citizens responded to the 9/11 attacks with a spontaneous candlelight vigil as a show of sympathy.

Iran-U.S. relations are now headed for a crisis over Tehran's nuclear program, which appears to be so advanced that Iran could produce its first bomb by the end of next year. The Bush administration is right to address this issue, but it needs to step very carefully to keep from inflaming Iranian nationalism and uniting the population behind the regime. We need to lay out the evidence on satellite television programs that are broadcast into Iran, emphasizing that the regime is squandering money on a nuclear weapons program that will further isolate Iranians and damage their economy.

Left to its own devices, the Islamic revolution is headed for collapse, and there is a better chance of a strongly pro-American democratic government in Tehran in a decade than in Baghdad. The ayatollahs' best hope is that hard-liners in Washington will continue their inept diplomacy, creating a wave of Iranian nationalism that bolsters the regime � as happened to a lesser degree after President Bush put Iran in the axis of evil.

Oh, that one instance when I was treated inhospitably? That was in a teahouse near the Isfahan bazaar, where I was interviewing religious conservatives. They were warm and friendly, but a group of people two tables away went out of their way to be rude, yelling at me for being an American propagandist. So I finally encountered hostility in Iran � from a table full of young Europeans.__

This is one of the best arguments I've seen against inept meddling in the middle east. Given enough time, the people of the region will eventually have enough of their less than stellar governments and open up to other ideas.

What do you think?

P.S. I had to laugh at the last paragraph. It reminded me so much of knee jerk liberalism and its ugly brother, knee-jerk nationalism

[Sven G]

Of course!

BTW, on a historical "local battle" level, I would cite the world-famous Monsieur de La Palisse:

M. de la Palisse est mort,
Mort devant Pavie
Un quart d'heure avant sa mort
Il �tait encore en vie!

Or:

Sir De La Palisse is dead
He's dead ouside the city of Pavia
A quarter of an hour before his death
He was still alive!

Just apply that to Iraq and any other war: before their forced "democratization", the Iraqis could still have had the vital force to counter their "government" on their own (but now it's more difficult, being that they are essentially "deathened" by force!) - lapalissian, isn't it...?

[djohnson]

Is this for real? It almost reads like a fairy tale. Well, maybe this is why we are not doing anything there now? Wait and lets see what happens. If they get nukes though, lets invade and maybe the local population will help out this time! Parades in the streets when the Americans arrive!

[swrate]

Yes, typical,
Iranians always think the governement is lying to them. (same as Arabs in the ME often think terrorists are Jews acting like Muslims)
not knowing what to believe anymore....

The students retaliate and have numerous associations.

Collapse? it's lasted long enough,I doubt this will happen before the next 4-5 years though. that's well enough.

[rambo47]

It seems our political leaders have been making the same mistakes in world affairs for generations and show no signs of letting up. We go into another part of the world and get involved in one big quagmire after another. In Vietnam we simply didn't understand their cultural values or have the slightest idea what the people really wanted. Oh, sure, we knew what the political leadership asked of us and what they claimed was best for their country, but we were mislead. "Inside every Vietnamese is an American trying to get out." Substitute "Iraqi" for "Vietnamese" and there you have it.

Here we are now in Iraq with no firm understanding of how the Muslim world regards our actions or our way of life. Lots of room for embarrasment and failure, little room for success.

If we're going into a country to simply kill some very bad guys who definitely have it coming, then I'm all for it. But if the plan is to build a new nation, I'm afraid we're seeing the results of that idea, and it's a bad one. The only people that can build a nation are the people who will live in it.

[heresiarh]

That is somewhat true of Iran.