13 Aban

The country of Iran is a fascinating one, but one I am likely never to visit. The relationship between the United States and Iran is so strained, so often openly hostile, that to visit as an American seems so full of hazard as to be not worth the risk. I would like to think that this is a situation that may change over time. History has shown that cultures who have clashed in even the most violent ways can reconcile and learn to tolerate one another. There is not a single nation that directly fought the United States in either World War I or World War II, that I would hesitate to visit today. Just a few years ago I had the good fortune to be able to travel through Vietnam for more than a week. While my country of origin was immediately obvious to all, and I made no attempt to hide it, I did not see an ounce of recoil or anger in the Vietnamese I encountered. I admit I was surprised at how happy they appeared to be to see Americans. At first I thought it was perhaps an act, a routine bred into the culture out of fear or loathing from a previous generation--as the violence there is generationally not far removed--but the more smiles I saw the more convinced I was that they were sincere. Our history in that region has not by any means been forgotten. A trip to the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chih Minh City (which had been called The American War Crimes Museum) will dispel that notion. Likewise, the Vietnamese have no more escaped Vietnam Era politics than we have. But both countries seem to have put enough objectivity into their eyes that the cultures themselves are no longer at war. So there is hope that one day I might get to visit Iran under different circumstances. Today came just another small glimmer of hope.

Today in Iran is the anniversary of a number of events in that country's history that have helped shape both it's internal politics and its place on the modern world stage. Tehran Bureau has an excellent roundup of the signifigance of this date in Iranian history, known as 13 Aban on the Iranian calendar:

Nov. 4 marks the the day, 30 years ago, when Islamic leftist students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 69 people hostage. Seventeen of them were released at various times, but the remaining 52 remained captive for 444 days. The event was a watershed in U.S.-Iran relations with repercussions still felt today. The main consequence of that event has been that the United States, the most powerful nation on earth, and Iran, the most important country in the Middle East, have not had diplomatic relations for three decades.

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Nov. 4 also marks the anniversary of two other important events in the history of contemporary Iran. On that day in 1964, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi forced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini into exile, first to Turkey and then to Najaf, Iraq. The Ayatollah returned to Iran triumphantly on February 1, 1979, after the Shah had gone into exile on January 16, 1979.

It was also on Nov. 4, 1978, that a gathering of students on the campus of the University of Tehran was attacked by the Shah's security forces. Scores of young people were killed, including students as young as 13. That event made it clear that the confrontation between the Shah and the Iranian people had entered its final stage, and that it could end only if the Shah was removed from power.

The day is roughly the equivalent of Tienamen Square and the Democratic National Convention of 1968 crammed together, and its significance is not lost on the people of Iran or its leaders. An already unsettled Tehran, still seething from what was a fairly clearly rigged Presidential election back in June, saw protests and clashes between protesters and government last night. There are even reports that Hossein Mousavi, who lost the election in June and is the nominal figurehead of the protesters, has been placed under house arrest.

To my mind, however, the big news of the day came from a speech made by the Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri in which he tells the world that the events and consequences of their actions during the revolution and the taking of American hostages was a mistake:

The occupation of the U.S. Embassy after the victory of the revolution was supported by most of the revolutionary groups and the late Imam Khomeini, but with the sensitivity and negative reaction shown by the American people, which still remains to this day, it has become clear that this was not the right thing to do.

The embassy of a country is regarded as part of that country and [since] that country was not at war with us, the occupation of the embassy was a declaration of war, and this is not right. Some of the committed young people who carried out this act now also believe that it was wrong.

The rest of his speech is here (you'll have to scroll down to mid-page), and it is fascinating. This kind of statement from perhaps the only man left in Iran who was there for all of its recent political history and perhaps the most important progressive thinker in all of Islam is both unprecedented and encouraging. While cooler heads have almost never prevailed on either side of the Iranian-American chasm, it is refreshing to know that they are out there, particularly in one so influential as Montazeri.  President Obama made a statement today on the 30th Anniversary of the embassy takeover and was in agreement that both countries ought to move towards making gestures of trust.  He also made clear that the government of Iran has been less and less likely to trust and less and less trustworthy over the last three decades.  No coincidence that Montazeri and those who would support his calls for a more open and democratic Iranian government spent 20 of those 30 years as a political persona non grata with the Iranian government.  My trip to Iran will not come easily.

A protestor in Tehran holds a rock during a face-off with police after the June elections.