Other articles in the Prospect online symposium on the Iranian nuclear crisis: Philip Gordon explains why the US is unlikely to bomb Iran |
If you have been following the developing story of Iran's defiance of the IAEA, then you have probably seen images of Iranian women in long black chadors (veils) surrounding nuclear facilities in support of their government's position. You may have even heard reports of the Iranian public's overwhelming support for its government's nuclear efforts. For once, it seems, the Iranian public and its regime agree on something. I'm not so sure.
Iranian public opinion is unreliable at best. Iranians are masters at gauging what to say and how to present it. They seem to have a nose for what their audience wants to hear. Everyone I talk to in Iran has an opinion, yet I am rarely sure if that opinion remains the same from discussion to discussion.
I—an American woman married to an Iranian called Keivan—decided to go back through two years of diary notes. What I found was ambivalence and ignorance on the nuclear issue on the part of Iranians mixed with an overwhelming desire to end their isolation from the rest of the world.
Fall 2004
At a party filled with EU diplomats, I ask why they announced an agreement in their non-proliferation talks with the Iranians. "We had an agreement," one tells me. "We had to announce it. We had to hold the Iranians to their agreement." But one of the first and hardest lessons anyone learns in Iran is that you never have an agreement.
Iranians worry about attack. I try not to worry, but I worry too. I do not want to see war. I do not want the people I know and love to be bombed. I don't even want to see people I do not like bombed. That's what a sissy I have become. "Why do you keep nuclear power from us?" a taxi driver asks me when he discovers that I'm American.
"No one is trying to keep Iran from having nuclear power. Nuclear bombs are the problem."
"We don't need the bomb," the driver responds. This sentiment is repeated over and over again.
Winter 2004-05
It's a cold, snowy winter. Iran has a gas shortage and is shutting down gas services to various neighbourhoods. "We have no heat, no hot water," friends tell us. We are lucky. Our gas remains on all winter. "They are selling the gas we need to heat our homes to the Indians and the Chinese," a friend complains. Meanwhile, there is enough gas leaking out of the pipes to heat the entire nation, not to mention the gas Iranians waste heating their homes to summer temperatures so that they can walk around in bare feet and t-shirts. Iranians have no doubt that they need a more reliable source of power.
Summer 2005
Iran's economy is a mystery. Oil money is coming in, but where is it going? Nuclear power and peccadilloes? Perhaps the yellow Hummer I saw cruising up and down Valiasr Street after the football victory that secured Iran a place in the World Cup? It certainly isn't going to pay the bills owed to hundreds of small, medium-sized, and even large non-oil businesses. "We have not received payments from our clients for more than six months," a friend tells me. "One of our clients, one of the largest non-oil manufacturers in Iran, gave us a cheque that bounced. If we do not get paid this month we'll have to close down."
Fall 2005
Iranians watch televised pictures of their new president arriving at the UN. The talk is of his clothing. I overhear a number of conversations about the president's appalling fashion sense. "Other leaders arrive looking clean and well-dressed, but our president looks like a mess. How could he dress that way in front of the UN?" This seemed to be the common refrain. Friends and family confirm that this is the topic of conversation everywhere they go. "If we were in south Tehran, they would probably be pleased. They're probably saying that he's just like us. He's a man of the people." Maybe.
We stay up late discussing Ahmadinejad's speech and its possible effects. "Iran is overplaying its hand," a journalist friend comments. "It is underestimating America. It thinks America is weak. Everywhere I go now, officials are fighting to be more intractable and more unreasonable."
The rumourmill is churning out talk of all sorts of necessary supplies being hoarded in underground storage areas all over the country.
Iranians are dragging out the negotiations, giving themselves time to build relationships with the Russians and the Chinese. Some Iranians I speak to believe that the regime will eventually come to an agreement about the nuclear issues, but I am not so sure. Why would it come to an agreement with the EU and US when China doesn't care about its nuclear ambitions or its human rights record?
Winter 2005-06
We watch as the snow falls and falls. For days it has been so overcast that you could not see the mountains a few miles away. There are lots of tall pines in Tehran, so it does not take too much snow to make the northern and colder part of the city look like a Christmas postcard.
For two years I have been arguing with Iranians about their nuclear ambitions. Recently an Iranian living in Sweden was visiting us with his Swedish fiancée. "Ahmadinejad is a good man," they tell us.
"What makes you say that?" I ask. "His call to wipe Israel off the map? His willingness to bring Iran to the brink of war? His efforts to return Iran to the values of the revolution?"
"Why shouldn't Iran have the bomb?" Which gets me to my own question: why do so many Iranians who have fled Iran think it's such a great idea for the regime to have the bomb? "It will bring us respect."
"So you think Germany is not respected? Or Japan? Or Holland? Or Sweden?" Iranians seem to think that all developed countries have the bomb.
Later that month
We get into a car that smells like cat pee. "I don't understand why we are making all this fuss about nuclear energy," our driver tells us. "We have bombs with anti-Israel slogans painted on them and we want to know why Israel is afraid of us having nuclear capabilities. I cannot understand why our two countries are not friendly in the first place. We were friends. We Iranians have nothing against Israel. Why do we have to pretend that we do?"
I am thinking that my Persian is failing me. I just sit and let the driver do the talking. When we get out of the car, I ask Keivan if I understood him correctly. "You did," he tells me. "A lot of Iranians feel the way he does."
My sister calls me, "Has cartoon-mania hit your neighbourhood yet?" The cartoons are now part of the nuclear crisis in Iran.
"Give me a letter asking the American soldiers not to kill me," a friend asks me. It's half a joke, half serious. Iranians worry about the effects of being referred to the security council.
"You mean even the Russians voted against us?" a taxi driver asks in disbelief. Keivan explains for him.
"Only Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba voted against the resolution."
"Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba? You mean the Chinese voted against us too?"
"The IAEA does not trust that Iran has told the full truth."
The driver just accepts this. Like every other Iranian, he knows there is no arguing with that comment. "Why do we have such bad luck?" he asks.
"Well, we have a president who cannot accept the fact that 6m Jews were killed in gas chambers and asks for Israel to be wiped off the map. Not even the Palestinians ask for this, but we have to."
"What difference does that make?"
"What if Bush said that there was no war with Iraq and that over 1m people did not die in that war? How do you think that would make us feel?"
Spring 2006
Iranians are in a kind of denial. They are pretending that sanctions won't happen and won't hurt. "We lived through the war with Iraq," is the standard line fed to reporters. "We'll live through this."
Why do Iranians mistrust everything the government tells them, but trust their spin when it comes to the nuclear issue? We wonder. If you have followed the nuclear issue at all, then you know that it is reported that Iranians support their government in this issue. Yet, when you hear Iranians on the street respond to reporters (and to me and to Keivan) they always say, "We support nuclear energy." You would be hard-pressed to find an Iranian who says, "We need nukes. We are willing to be isolated for nukes."
The standard line in Iran is that the west wants to prevent it from having nuclear power, not arms. Because the Iranian regime's spin is simple—changing only one simple fact instead of many—it is easy to believe. It is a good piece of fantasy. It does not clash with the message Iranians are getting from any number of outside sources.
All of our news channels are blocked as the security council begins its discussion of Iran and its nuclear programme Presumably this is to prevent us from becoming alarmed over the nuclear talks in Vienna. Who knows? On the first day of the talks, Keivan wakes me up at 5 in the morning to tell me there will be no sanctions. "There was no evidence of intention to make a bomb."
"Where did you get that information from?"
"Iranian news."
Of course, the talks are not over.
Chahr Shanbe Souri
The last Tuesday of the Iranian year is celebrated with fireworks and bonfires. We jump over fires and then eat risotto with friends. "I feel so sorry for the nuclear negotiators," Sophia tells us. "I know how difficult it is just to date an Iranian guy, let alone negotiate with him! They cannot make decisions; they don't want to commit to anything; they break their promises. But then when they are nice, they are so nice that you forgive them everything!"
"Every morning I dream that I will wake up and find American Marines telling me what to do. I've had this dream since the revolution," a taxi driver tells us.
We've heard variations on this theme since the first day we arrived in Iran. Iranians are exhausted in the most fundamental way. Every day we meet veterans of the revolution and veterans of the Iran-Iraq war who are dejected, cynical and just plain tired of struggling. "I believed in the revolution," a skinny, bearded man tells us. "I was in the streets. I fought for it. The revolution betrayed us. The good were killed or went crazy. The ones who survived are the thieves."
The young have turned their backs on politics. Many watched as young democracy advocates were arrested and abandoned. Now they just want to be left alone. "I don't care if the mullahs stay in power as long as they leave us alone."
Scratch the surface, though, and you find an enduring love for Iran. Iranians are nationalists in the way that Americans are nationalists. Even when they despise their government, they love their country, and when pressed, Iranians rally around their country. The regime knows this. That's why they are pressing so hard on the nuclear issue.
Almost summer, 2006
Reports say sanctions won't work, but they are already having some effect. We hear that the regime cannot use the money that is flowing in; Iranian companies cannot get letters of credit; and western banks are no longer making it easy for money to move in and out of Iran.
Our friends have two sweepstakes going: one for the World Cup and one for the date of an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. Keivan is sure Iran will be attacked, so is a journalist we spoke with. Others are still on the fence. "It's 50-50."
I still believe in a diplomatic resolution. Maybe I am the crazy one.
