When a regime is paranoid and when it tries to interfere in every aspect of private and public life, its citizens will run like the fox. In Iran, every unexpected ring of the phone, every unexpected nocturnal knock on the door produces a racing heart and a sense of imminent danger. The scars of living under a paranoid regime last a lifetime. Today, even after I have resided in California for almost a quarter of century, a ring of the phone can still provoke fear and trembling.
