[image from img.timeinc.net too old to be available]

Fast Times In Tehran

Some actual pictures of Iran

This About That

If you actually read the article you would see that the support for the current regime isn't that high and the attitudes of the youth (70% under 30) are generally favorable to the US. According to the Smithsonian article "A New Day In Iran";

"These disenchanted "children of the revolution" make up the bulk of Iran's population, 70 percent of which is under 30. Too young to remember the anti-American sentiment of the '70s, they share little of their parents' ideology. While young Iranians of an earlier generation once revered Che Guevara and romanticized guerrilla movements, students on today's college campuses tend to shun politics and embrace practical goals such as getting a job or admission into a foreign graduate school. Some 150,000 Iranian professionals leave the country each year-one of the highest rates of brain drain in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Iranian intellectuals are quietly rediscovering American authors and embracing values familiar to any American civics student-separation of church and state, an independent judiciary and a strong presidency."

I wasn't really talking about the Kos article, I was refering to the TIME one that I posted or the Smithsonian one that I refered to in my second post. The main trick is for the Irianian is to lessen the grips the Mullahs have on the country. I know it seems unlikely but there is hope...

"There's ample evidence that many ordinary Iranians are fed up with the involvement of Muslim clerics in government. "During the Constitutional Revolution, we talked about the separation of religion and state, without really knowing what that means," historian Kaveh Bayat told me in his book-filled Tehran study. "Our understanding today is much deeper. Now we know that it is neither in our interests nor the clergy's interest to rule the state." Or, as a physician in Tehran put it to me: "The mullahs, by failing, did what Ataturk could not even do in Turkey: secularize the populace thoroughly. Nobody wants to experiment with religion and politics anymore.""


text describing link that opens in new window"target="_blank">Smithsonian

As well before this new nut took power Mohammad Khatami was actually trying to change the election process. If you look up the "twin bills' they were passed by parliament but vetoed obviously by the Guaridan Council. Are they going to be able to restle power from the Guardian Council, I don't know but I'm hopeful. At least we are seeing that the belief in change is alive there.

Here is the Smithsonian article.

jre

Yeah, I really am hopeful for them and we really need the fiddle and not the drum when talking about Iran. Though, the outskirts of Iran are a lot more secular.

I just hope the visiting disaster isn't us.