I missed it so far. A USA journalist, Tom Friedman, spent quite some time over the year (2003) in going about all over Iran. What makes this so interesting is Tom is very definitely Jewish and makes no bones/excuses for being such and had NO PROBLEMS whatsoever during his sojourn there. He said no one seemed to care one way or the other and the people he mainly associated with were "the ordinary people".

He also said that there was very definitely a great undercover unrest and resentment among those people that he had not expected to find. They are heartily sick of the Mullahs and their present governmental structure and would like to come back into that real world their parents knew. I can believe it. One point he said was made to him over and over again was that NONE of the 911 murderers were Iranians and that the USA should be bringing pressure to bear on the Saudi's who were the main people involved.

I knew a lot of Iranians in the Shah's time and I uniformly liked them and their view of life. I worked there (Abadan), lived among them and with them, enjoyed their company and found them to be an intelligent and interesting people. I
will be glad to see them recover their position in the world if and when they shake loose from the "religious police" and all that goes with it. Would you believe, if an Iranian woman were to wear in public an outfiit even closely similiar to a western woman that she would be beaten by these SOB's? And friends, those women SHOULD dress like Westerners; they are a very good looking people, especially the women.

Maybe it will happen within my lifetime, after all.

:hat