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Back From Iran
15-Jul-2010
"I just got back from Iran."
In today's America, that's a conversation-stopper. Those of us able to say it become temporary objects of fascination, like our grandparents would have been if they had visited China or the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Traveling to Iran makes one seem like a bold adventurer on a dangerous foray into enemy territory.
The reality is more prosaic. Although few Americans visit Iran, there is in fact no legal obstacle to doing so. I accompanied a group of American tourists on a thousand-mile, two-week trip through the country. We met no government or opposition leaders, but we were free to talk with ordinary Iranians, and did so at every stop. Because the government has made it difficult for Western journalists to work in Iran, traveling the country this way may now be the best way to gauge its people's mood.
The first thing that strikes Americans who visit Iran is how amazingly pro-American its people are. Nowhere else in the Middle East, nowhere else in the Muslim world, and almost nowhere else on earth do people so unreservedly admire the United States. Opinion surveys confirm this phenomenon, and I remembered it from previous visits. Nonetheless it was disorienting, in the heart of the purported axis of evil, to to be surrounded, as I was at Imam Square in Isfahan, by giddy female college students shrieking "We love America so much!" At a Persian garden in Kashan, I met a solemn elder whose only English phrase is "America very good," and who pronounced it with grave reverence.
Pro-American feeling in Iran is due mainly to Iranians' admiration for what the United States has achieved. Americans have what many Iranians want: democracy, personal freedom, and rule of law. Their desire for these blessings is not abstract or transitory. It is the product of their century of striving toward liberal democracy. Since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, generations of Iranians have assimilated democratic ideals. Today their society is the opposite of their regime: open, tolerant, and eager to engage with the world. There is more long-term potential for democracy in Iran than almost anywhere else in the Muslim Middle East.
Pro-American sentiment in Iran is a priceless strategic asset for the US. A military attack would liquidate or at least severely weaken this asset. It would probably turn the most pro-American population in the Middle East into anti-Americans, further undermining the US position in the world's most volatile region.
The second thing I learned in Iran is that last year's explosion of anti-government protest is finished, at least for the moment. Governments use repression against protesters for the simple reason that it usually works. It has worked in Iran. Many people are unhappy -- it is impossible to estimate how many -- but no one I met predicted more upheaval soon. Life is reasonably good for most Iranians, and a possibly stolen election is not enough to force them from their homes to face beatings and arrest.
This suggests that if there are to be any negotiations with Iran over the next few years -- the amount of time it may take for the Iranian nuclear program to mature -- they will have to be with the current regime. Postponing a broad negotiating offer in the hope that the regime may fall is unrealistic.
Finally, I was struck -- though not surprised -- by the unanimity with which Iranians, even those who joined last year's protests and fervently support the reform agenda, reject help from the US or any other outside power.
"Many people don't like the regime, but they don't want the Americans to come and rule us," a shopkeeper in the Shiraz bazaar told me. "They would rather live under a regime they don't like than a regime placed in power by foreigners."
This sentiment is widespread and powerful in Iran. The reason is to be found in modern history. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, Iran was ravaged by foreigners who subjugated its people and looted its resources. Whenever Iran has sought to modernize -- whether by building a steel mill in the 1930s or by nationalizing its oil industry in the 1950s -- outsiders have intervened to block it. This has made Iranians as sensitive to foreign intervention as any people in the world. It leads them to reject political forces that they see as sponsored, supported, or encouraged from abroad.
Some Americans would like to see Congress and President Obama embrace Iran's democratic movement vigorously and publicly. But not even the movement's own leaders want this support. Far from helping them, an endorsement from Washington would stigmatize them and de-legitimize their cause. Americans often assume that their support for like-minded friends in the world is helpful. In Iran, it would not be.
"Bush was very bad," mused a math teacher I found sitting beneath a fig tree in the town of Rayen. "Obama is a little better. But Iranian people believe that when America and England look at Iran and Arab countries, it is only because they want to steal what we have."
Sobering realities shape Iranian politics: There will be no regime change soon, and there is little the West can do to hasten it. Nonetheless, Iran may have more democratic potential than almost any other society in the Muslim world. Seventy percent of Iranians are under the age of 30. Change will come, but at Iran's pace, not America's.
In the meantime, centrifuges will keep spinning at Iran's nuclear plants. This looming crisis cries out for creative diplomacy, but Washington remains frozen in the paradigm of confrontation.
First published in HuffingtonPost.com.
AUTHOR
Stephen Kinzer is an author and newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than fifty countries on five continents.
RECENT COMMENTS
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Mola
by Doctor X on Sat Jul 17, 2010 09:39 AM PDTExcuse me... But who in here is more concerned with war and destruction... Talking about it is one thing, but to actually list the ways people should go about doing it, says so much about one's mentality.
Oh dear oh dear
by khaleh mosheh on Sat Jul 17, 2010 09:31 AM PDTmore histrionics from the failed taleb. Looks like the modern medicine has failed him, Enshallah Abolfazl betoneh shafash bedeh.
Wrong again!
by Mola Nasredeen on Sat Jul 17, 2010 09:30 AM PDTActually, Imperialists are not filthy at all. They are very clean, well dressed and well fed. It also goes for the Zionists and their lackies, clean, well fed and well dressed. Our tax dollarts at work.
My advice for the red hot anti Iranian "revolutionaries" is as follow:
1. Go back to Iran and start a guerilla army to fight Iran (learn from Jondolla in Baluchestan, you may want to join them).
2. Join Israeli army and fight Iran.
3. Create a video game where you can fight Iran while serfing the web, you'll be the general or the freedom fighter who is destroying the infidel Iranians.
A "Piece" Of Pie
by Demo on Sat Jul 17, 2010 09:15 AM PDTThat is what the so called "Peace" lovers like Mola Nilofar, Mola Soraya, Mola Shirin, Mola Naseredeen & other Mola "Se-Fats (Types)" are after!!!
Did someone say Peace?
by Doctor X on Sat Jul 17, 2010 08:32 AM PDTPeace? Are you kidding me? With this attitude?...
Leave IRI alone to continue its killing, torturing, & stealing
by AMIR1973 on Sat Jul 17, 2010 07:42 AM PDTKhahar Niloufar Parsi has pronounced her fatwa on the subject. The Democratic People's Islamic Republic of Iran (DPIRI) is a beacon of resistance to the Filthy Zionists, Filthy Imperialists, and their Filthy Lackeys ("lackies" according to Dadash Mola).
Peace .-)
leave iran alone
by Niloufar Parsi on Sat Jul 17, 2010 02:22 AM PDTwell said hamed!
Peace
read: "The Prize," the epic quest for oil, money & power" by
by obama on Sat Jul 17, 2010 09:42 AM PDTDaniel Yergin. A monumental book. This is a must book not only for Americans, but definitely for every iranian.
The writer is correct in many aspects of his observation. However, in my opinion, he doesn't know how people financially are striving since people are not going to tell stranger.
I was there 3 years ago, and noticed that despite the financial difficulties, many people in the middle class either liked AN, or neutral, saying he is not a thief like the rest even though they hated the regime. In the villages and small towns he was very popular.
However, the well to-do thought that he is an idiot who by opening his big mouth, costing Iran billions. So difintely the large majority of younger, educated and well to-do were against AN.
As much as people hate the regime, they would all fight against any foreign country that attacks iran. At the beginning of Iraq invasion, they were asking me when is the US going to get rid of the regime. However, after the Iraq fiasco, they all turned against that idea!
They love America, mostly because they think American people are good people with good values, and US is a good country that they wished they could have, but they don't like the american government. They believe that the ameican people don't know about all the atrociteis that their government is doing around the world! if US/Israel ever invades Iran, whether droppping bomb in a desert, or a city, they are going to defend iran.
Our true love is for Iran. After all, it was the US policies in our country that made us homeless. Our real home is and always will be Iran! US/UK/Israel hands off Iran!
Cho Iran Nabaashad Taneh man mabad! peace!
Can't Expect too much
by Doctor X on Fri Jul 16, 2010 09:18 PM PDTI don't know if anyone watched RicK steve's episode on travelling to iran almost a year ago. I do realize that Kinzer's take on the situation in iran is more politically inclined, but i see two same reports from different reporters. I don't think we can expect too much from them. Perhaps their assignment is to come back with a product that would seem pleasing to the eyes of the typical american viewer, to change their minds and pysche about Iran and Iranians.
We could not possibly expect him to give us a detailed report on the economic status of the country, or to gauge the satisfaction level inevery walk of the society.
Please don't make him regret this trip.
Relocating To Iran!
by G. Rahmanian on Fri Jul 16, 2010 08:44 PM PDTSince IR is, according to Mr. Kinzer, a country where most people are happy with their lives, I also suggest that Mr. Kinzer along with his extended family relocate there!
Brother Kinzer may be on to something here
by AMIR1973 on Fri Jul 16, 2010 08:09 PM PDTWhen he states: 'Life is reasonably good for most Iranians", what he might mean is "reasonably good" for those kinds of people, but certainly not a standard of living that most Westerners would accept. However, this may be the perfect opportunity for the West-residing IRI Groupies who are always lamenting the terrible state of affairs in the U.S. to relocate permanently to Brother Kinzer's Islamist paradise with its tremendous First World standard of living. Isn't it so? :-)
Contradictory!
by G. Rahmanian on Fri Jul 16, 2010 07:58 PM PDTStephen Kinzer says:
"Americans have what many Iranians want: democracy, personal freedom, and rule of law. Their desire for these blessings is not abstract or transitory. It is the product of their century of striving toward liberal democracy. Since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, generations of Iranians have assimilated democratic ideals. Today their society is the opposite of their regime: open, tolerant, and eager to engage with the world. There is more long-term potential for democracy in Iran than almost anywhere else in the Muslim Middle East."
And then he says:
"Life is reasonably good for most Iranians, and ..."
How can Iranians live under one the most brutal regimes in their history and have a resonably good life?
Kinzer is also trying his best to reduce people's movement to protests vis-a-vis last year's fraudulant presidential election.
He has done a terrible job!
how about
by shushtari on Fri Jul 16, 2010 07:07 PM PDTsending 5000 special ops forces to kill all the akhoonds living in jamaran and the mansions in north tehran?????
great article from a great man
by Anonymous8 on Fri Jul 16, 2010 07:01 PM PDTyour book was priceless mr. kinzer. thank you.
The 5th paragraph sums up
by MM on Fri Jul 16, 2010 06:42 PM PDTThe 5th paragraph sums up the Iranian struggle:
"Pro-American feeling in Iran is due mainly to Iranians' admiration for what the United States has achieved. Americans have what many Iranians want: democracy, personal freedom, and rule of law. Their desire for these blessings is not abstract or transitory. It is the product of their century of striving toward liberal democracy. Since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, generations of Iranians have assimilated democratic ideals. Today their society is the opposite of their regime: open, tolerant, and eager to engage with the world. There is more long-term potential for democracy in Iran than almost anywhere else in the Muslim Middle East."
How else do want to change this regime?
by Mola Nasredeen on Fri Jul 16, 2010 06:25 PM PDTGo ahead.
Prove what you said about me
by AMIR1973 on Fri Jul 16, 2010 06:21 PM PDTYou said: "you are itching to see another hundreds of thousands perish in a new series of wars in Iran". Prove what you said about me. Otherwise, that makes you a liar (that doesn't sound like an innocent mistake to me).
Mola and his "sources"
by AMIR1973 on Fri Jul 16, 2010 06:19 PM PDTThe source of Mola's quote is Alexander Cockburn. Cockburn is an old school Commie of the USSR-loving variety from a family of Commies (his father, Claud, was a well-known Stalinist and had close contacts with Soviet agents).
When the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Alexander Cockburn said the following: "I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it's Afghanistan. Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too..."
Amirak, google it!
by Mola Nasredeen on Fri Jul 16, 2010 06:21 PM PDTGet of this page and find it yourself. Not letting go off ideas one knows to be false will results mental laziness in mobtalayan.
Prove it, Mola
by AMIR1973 on Fri Jul 16, 2010 06:08 PM PDTThere's a word for someone who says things without proof: L-I-A-R :-)
And you are itching to see another hundreds of thousands
by Mola Nasredeen on Fri Jul 16, 2010 06:08 PM PDTperish in a new series of wars in Iran. Aren't you?
But this is what Iranians inside Iran saying:" no more bloodshed, no more wars under any pretext". Read today's conversation by the Washington Post reporter who is reporting from Iran now. NPR news (all things considered PM) interviewed him, go and listen to that.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians died in war prolonged by Emam
by AMIR1973 on Fri Jul 16, 2010 05:42 PM PDTMola, you're not fooling anyone other than your fellow West-residing IRI Amen Corner. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians died in a war prolonged by Khomeini. He shares the blame for those deaths, and the Islamists need to answer for all those lives lost needlessly.
Leave Iran alone
by Hamed on Fri Jul 16, 2010 03:55 PM PDTThis is a realistic analysis of Iran today, US and the West should leave Iran alone and let her develope and grow at her own pace. But the greed and addiction to oil and the US-Israeli embellical cord has created a quagmire that seems to have become more and more an tangeled mess. By the way those Iranian women in the background are pretty.
No more wars! forget about morality it's not economical
by Mola Nasredeen on Fri Jul 16, 2010 03:46 PM PDTThis is what Americans are facing:
"This summer many Americans are frightened. Over 100,000 of them file for bankruptcy every month. Three million homeowners face foreclosure this year. Add them to the 2.8 million who were foreclosed in 2009, Obama’s first year in office. Nearly seven million have been without jobs in the last year for six months or longer. By the time you tot up the people who have given up looking for work and the people on part-time, the total is heading toward 20 million."
While the Israeli Lobby and its supporters here are pushing for more wars, this time against Iran.
PASH-MAKI MOLA(S) TRUTH HATER(S)!!!!!
by Demo on Fri Jul 16, 2010 03:18 PM PDTThe very much Mola’s tale (Hadith), petition that is, in the following link by the Mola Soraya about her“distinguished???” associate is so similar with the “Shahram Amiri’s” so called “A Hypo Gateway” story tale:
//www.ipetitions.com/petition/protestiranianresearcherabuse/
PS: IRI is the only so called “Islamic" government which allows the “Women Molaship” even though they carry the maiden name of”Ulrich.” Mola(s) can't handle the truth!!!!!
Hundreds of thousands
by Mola Nasredeen on Fri Jul 16, 2010 03:12 PM PDTwho have died by wars and terrorist acts such as the one yesterday. Meanwhile you're celebrating this occasion and asking for more.
"As far as Iran and Iranians are concerned"
by Onlyiran on Fri Jul 16, 2010 03:04 PM PDTReally?!!! And who died and appointed you to be the spokesperson for "Iran and Iranians" from the comfort of your lovely home is Southern California?
As far as Iran and Iranians are concerned
by Mola Nasredeen on Fri Jul 16, 2010 02:53 PM PDTone pasham of my camel worths more than hundreds of Iran haters here.
Javadagha
by AMIR1973 on Fri Jul 16, 2010 02:25 PM PDTAmir1973, CASMII does not list its members names
I said members and affiliates. People are welcome to check out the links below, all from CASMII's website (which has a list of its Board of Directors)
//www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=taxonomy/term/973
//www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/10499
//www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/97
I am glad Soraya is not posting on Iranian.com anymore. She has more courage than you, Masoud, Fred, and Onlyiran put together. Everybody must search her name and give credit to her. She is not a khaeyh mal like many Eye-ranians.
We may not have Soraya here anymore, but we can always read Hossein Shariatmadari's articles to get "alternative " perspectives. He's another courageous fellow and a well-known person who uses his own name and whose wonderful articles are available for others to see :-)
Where can I find your articles under your own full name, on Kayhan or on Iranian.com using an alias? Please direct me; your help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Amir Khan- such a great testimony for you
by khaleh mosheh on Fri Jul 16, 2010 02:19 PM PDTWell done-Keep up the good work.