THE STORY ON IRAN

Honolulu Star-Bulletin, HI
Vol. 11, Issue 260 – Sunday, September 17, 2006

Webster Nolan visited the tomb of the 14th-century mystic poet Hafiz in
Shiraz, a city in southwestern Iran, seen in this photo illustration.

Suspecting the American media aren’t portraying an accurate picture
of life inside Iran, a retired Honolulu journalist set out to get a
first-hand look at life in the so-called "Axis of Evil" nation By
Webster Nolan Special to the Star-Bulletin TWO WEEKS of traveling
around Iran earlier this year left me with the impression that at
least some Iranians might be just as worried about their leaders
as some Americans are about theirs. Admittedly, my impression was
thoroughly unscientific and intuitive, based more on the unusual
silences that occurred when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s name
came up in conversation. Nobody seemed eager to defend him, much less
espouse his frequently inflammatory public statements.

My purpose in visiting Iran evolved during the past year or two, mainly
because much of mainstream media in the United States and much of the
American public seemed to be buying into the idea that Tehran posed a
major threat to world peace. It was starting to look like Judith Miller
time again, when the star reporter for the New York Times (and her
editors) bought into the WMD threat supposedly posed by Saddam Hussein.

Only with Iran, it was not just one journalist but many who seem to
accept the "axis of evil" rhetoric as fact.

To be sure, there are exceptions (nationally syndicated columnist
Trudy Rubin and Washington Post writer David Ignatius come immediately
to mind). And plenty of information is available on the Internet and
from bookstores and libraries, if one has the time and curiosity to
pursue it. Generally speaking, though, the daily coverage about Iran
is negative.

Of course, a relatively brief visit to Iran could not prove anything
one way or the other. Still, it seemed useful to go talk with some
Iranians in their own environment, and also to get a first-hand look
at one of the world’s oldest cultures. A brief BusinessWeek article
last year reported on the growth of middle-class consumerism in Iran,
which piqued my curiosity. Also, a well-traveled friend had enjoyed a
visit to the country last year and encouraged me to go. So I signed
up with a British travel agency, got a visa in London and flew off
in late April with 20 other people, mostly Brits, for Tehran. We
traveled nearly 2,000 miles, mostly by bus, and the only certain
conclusion I came to was that Iran is a terrific place to visit.

For starters, everyone we met was friendly, sometimes going to
unexpected lengths to be helpful. (One man actually "walked the extra
mile" when, seeing I was lost on a street in Esfahan, he took me to
my destination, shook hands and went on his way. Others in my group
reported similar experiences.) Another man said he had heard that
Hawaii needed more singers to entertain tourists and asked if he
could get a job in Waikiki, at which point (this conversation took
place in a large crowded hotel lobby) he started singing a Puccini
aria to demonstrate his skill. On another occasion, an engineering
professor I met recited some lines from the 10th-century epic writer
Ferdowsi, a reminder that poetry plays a strong role in the education
and culture of Iran.

As a tourist destination, Iran offers hundreds of opportunities to
explore and ponder, including some of mankind’s most majestic and
serene achievements in architecture. On the other hand, much of the
terrain we covered was hot, arid desert or rugged mountains without
much greenery, which probably explains why Iranians love their public
gardens so much. Every town and city we visited had at least one
large public park with lots of flowing and fountaining water and
beautiful flowers.

PHOTO COURTESY NAINESH PATEL Webster Nolan poses outside the immense,
elaborately tiled gate of the 16th-century Imam Mosque in Esfahan
in central Iran, one of the world’s most majestic architectural
achievements.

ALL ALONG our route, on the streets, in restaurants, at museums
and galleries, mosques and parks, people would start conversations,
sometimes to practice their English (taught in nearly all elementary
schools), sometimes to sell souvenirs, but mostly just to engage in
ordinary conversation, about television programs and movies, cars,
sports, our impressions of their country. It was pretty clear that
most of them were up to date on global matters, presumably through
the Internet.

One of Iran’s attractions as a tourist destination is that you
can devise an itinerary that generally parallels the chronological
narrative of the country’s history. That is what our group leaders
did. After a visit to several Tehran museums (including the famed
jewelry exhibit and the National Museum) on the day of our arrival in
the country, we flew south to Shariz and the next day went by bus to
the ruins of Pasargardae and Persepolis, the ceremonial palaces of
Cyrus and Darius, the sixth-century B.C. "great" emperors who made
Persia the world superpower of their era.

Next we traveled through the Zagros Mountains in the southwest, at
one point viewing a narrow valley through which Alexander the Great
and his army reputedly traveled in their conquest of Iran in 334-330
B.C. Then we visited palace of Shapur I, the shah who defeated the
mighty Romans in several major battles and in A.D. 260 captured the
Emperor Valerian, believed to have died in his cell at the site.

The Arab conquest of Iran began in A.D. 660, and much of our remaining
itinerary focused on that era, which also brought Islam to Iran,
and the subsequent centuries of Mongol and Turk invasions, as well
the happier years of the Savafid dynasty (A.D. 1491-1722).

We visited ancient citadels and caravanserais, old battlegrounds,
Zoroastrian fire temples and Muslim mosques, two Armenian churches,
mausoleums and madrassas, minarets and medieval bridges, museums and
art galleries, bazaars and public gardens.

We stayed in the desert-bordering cities of Kerman and Yazd,
and the central Iran metropolis of Esfahan with its extraordinary
architecture, before returning to Tehran. Along our route we stopped
at smaller towns, Sarvestan and Nairiz, Mahan and Rayin, Natanz and
Kashan, each with something special to offer: a delicious lamb stew,
a carpet-weaving shop, a centuries-old ice house, a hidden garden, a
group of wind towers, an ancient qanat (a remarkable system of wells
for irrigating crops and supplying water to towns), and, invariably,
some enjoyable conversations with Iranians.

AS OUR JOURNEY progressed and we learned more about the country, we
began to fully appreciate that we were visiting a highly energetic,
entrepreneurial country.

International trade, going back to the Silk Road days and even further,
is a major part of their culture, a point made recently in editorial
commentaries by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who
had considerable experience negotiating with the Iranians.

In urging resumption of U.S.-Iran dialog, he advises American
negotiators to remember that the Iranians are born bargainers, as
our own visits to the bazaars amply testified.

Other Iranian assets are its high literacy rate (80 percent,
according to a CIA estimate), a growing middle class, citizen
experience in election campaigns and voting at the local and national
level. A recent study by professors Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr titled
"Democracy in Iran" documents a continuing effort by various political
and intellectual leaders during the 20th century to establish rule
of law, free press and a more free-wheeling political system than
currently imposed. (My own personal experiences also suggest that
many Iranians love a good argument, a trait that can play an important
part in democracy-building.)

Certainly Iran has some serious problems at this stage in its
history. Despite huge revenues from oil and vast untapped natural gas
resources, the country’s economy is faltering, with high unemployment
and inflation afflicting the population, estimated at 70 million. There
is a large gap between the few rich and many poor. There are strong
restraints on women, the news media and the market economy. The
government apparently has a good many inexperienced people in
decision-making positions. Students and the jobless occasionally take
to the streets to vent their anger.

The Iranian president, like the U.S. president, needs to acquire some
skills in public diplomacy.

AS WE NEARED the end of our trip, I wondered whether it might be better
for our government to work with Iran as a trading partner rather than
treat it as a political enemy, as a market rather than a military
target, much in the way that we’ve worked with China during the
past 30 years. Both countries would benefit, and a vigorous business
relationship likely would help defuse the incendiary rhetoric that
emanates from Tehran and Washington.

Getting to that stage would require compromises from both sides,
acknowledging past grievances, such as Iran’s holding 52 American
hostages for 444 days in 1979-80 and the continuing malignant
denunciations of Israel. The United States, for its part in re-opening
the dialog, would need to acknowledge its role in overthrowing Prime
Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, its stubborn backing of the
hated Shah Reza Mohammed, its covert support of Iraq in its 1980s
war on Iran, its shooting down of an Iranian airliner in July 1988
with 290 fatalities and its continuing economic sanctions, which in
the long run can only hurt and anger the Iranian people. These are
difficult and emotional issues, but that is why diplomacy exists — to
recognize such problems and move on toward building better relations.

CURRENT U.S. government concerns about Iran focus on two issues:
the suspicion that Tehran is developing nuclear weaponry and that
it supports international terrorism. The first step toward resolving
these disputes is for both sides to cool down, stop trying to scare
everybody with irresponsible public statements. The next step is to
find a way to start direct negotiations. That would not solve every
problem but could lessen many dangers.

The Internet and a wide range of books and reports offer useful
background on these two issues.

On the nuclear controversy, Iran’s membership in the nonproliferation
treaty (NPT) entitles it to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. The
Web site of the International Atomic Energy Agency affirms that Iran is
abiding by the Safeguards Agreement of the treaty, but also complains
that Iran fails to cooperate in "confidence building" by refusing to
provide certain documents and information about dual-use equipment
and certain individuals.

(I suspect that Iran is not the only NPT country withholding
information, since no nation would or should disclose data that might
help its perceived enemies.)

Still, the U.S. believes Tehran is hiding a nuclear weapons program,
though neither Washington nor Israel has provided convincing evidence
of this.

Even assuming that Tehran is trying to build a nuclear arsenal, which
it denies, the fact that Israel already has such weapons and refuses
to join the NPT bolsters Iran’s claim to self-defense. But surely
there must be a sufficient number of intelligent policy makers and
skilled negotiators in this world to come to grips with this problem.

As for Iran’s role in world terrorism, it’s probably accurate to say
that in the early years of the current regime, there was an effort
to export the Islamic revolution. But today, when President Bush and
his senior advisers accuse Iran of sponsoring international terrorism,
they generally give only two examples: supporting Hezbollah’s attacks
on Israel from Lebanon and Shia militants in Iraq. That’s hardly
worldwide terrorism. So, again, the first step is to cool the rhetoric
and stop frightening people unnecessarily.

Then it might be helpful to look at why Iran helps Hezbollah. In a
way, it’s similar to the reason why America helps Israel, although the
American effort operates on a much larger and more deadly scale. Iran,
like most of the Muslim world, works from the premise that Israel
is an illegitimate occupier of Palestine that for 60 years has
been terrorizing the Palestinians in the name of self-defense. On
the other hand, the U.S. government, Democrats and Republicans,
has long held that Israel is a legally constituted state that has
a right to defend itself from attack, even if, as most recently, it
means killing hundreds of innocent people or destroying the economy
of a nearby democracy.

This issue is much harder to resolve than the nuclear controversy. My
own belief is that the answer probably lies with those 30 or so groups
of Israelis and Arabs who work together, mostly in Israel, in village
government, in health and cultural projects, and sometimes even at the
political level, as in the Geneva Proposal for peace a few years ago.

MEANWHILE, a sincere effort to develop mutually beneficial relations
between Iran and the United States seems a far better course than
the current saber-rattling. A good place to start might be tourism,
especially if Tehran would encourage more Americans to visit by making
it easier to get visas.

(The visitor destination industry in Iran needs some upgrading,
so there might even be a role for Hawaii.) Another step, already
suggested by Rubin the columnist, might be to restart cultural exchange
programs, with initial emphasis on mutual visits by members of Congress
and the Iranian parliament. I might add, as someone who has seen the
value of such exchanges, that giving journalists priority might be
a big help, sending ours off to Iran and inviting theirs to America.

Webster Nolan is a retired journalist and former director of the
East-West Center journalist exchange programs.