How Americans Found Friends in Iran, of All Places (3 Letters)

NY Times ^ | 5/11/04 | NY Times

[freedom44]

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof's column from Iran ("Those Friendly Iranians," May 5) squares completely with my own experience in Iran last fall. I never expected the very high level of pro-American sentiment we received.

Clearly, this positive view of America is a backlash against the Islamic government in Iran. The Iranian people know that their government is telling them lies about the outside world, and they don't like being lied to.

As Mr. Kristof points out, Iran is much more likely to become the democratic bellwether in the Middle East than is Iraq. Perhaps Americans can learn a lesson from the Iranians' example: democracy depends on individuals making their own judgments about what is true and false in the news presented to them by their government and news media. Without this healthy skepticism, which is pervasive in Iran, true democracy cannot exist.

ROGER GRANGE Nyack, N.Y., May 5, 2004 The writer is a documentary filmmaker.

•

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof is certainly correct that the Iranians will throw off the yoke of the mullahs, and the best evidence of that eventuality is that the Iranians threw off the yolk of an American-installed dictator whose regime was no stranger to torture chambers.

While I was a student at U.C.L.A. in the early 1980's, I roomed with a brilliant Iranian Ph.D. candidate who relayed chapter and verse how his friends had been rounded up and tortured or killed because they advocated democracy.

From his perspective, the Iranian revolution was really a middle-class affair — significantly spurred on by a phalanx of Iranian students educated in the United States and intoxicated by democracy — that was hijacked by the hard-core Islamists.

JOHN H. ZIMMERMAN Arlington, Va., May 5, 2004

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To the Editor:

Re "Those Friendly Iranians," by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, May 5): Some hard-line factions in Tehran want to foment conflict and create an Islamic Republic of Iraq, while others realize that sectarian strife is not in Iran's interest.

When Shiite unrest threatened to spiral out of control, Iran sent an official delegation to mediate between different factions.

Iran also encouraged Iraq's most influential religious leaders to pressure the radical cleric Moktadar al-Sadr and mobilized Grand Ayatollah Kazem Hossein Haeri, who resides in the Iranian city of Qum, to call for the withdrawal of Mr. Sadr's Mahdi Army from Najaf and Karbala and to stop stockpiling weapons in mosques.

When national interests converge, as they currently do in Iraq, the United States and Iran should find ways of working together.

DAVID L. PHILLIPS New York, May 5, 2004 The writer is a senior fellow and deputy director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations.

[freedom44]

The related article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/05/opinion/05KRIS.html?8bl

[freedom44]

iran ping

[Vigilantcitizen]

Ping.

[rageaholic]

watch how fast our "friends" in Iran turn against us as soon as they feel threatened by their mullahs. Spineless people these moslems.

[freedom44]

I'm presuming you're saying this because of Iraq - but that's a totally different country - stop intermingling two countries with different history, culture, heritage, ethnicity, language, mentality, etc.

It's like someone bringing up what's happening in France everytime we mention the US - it's ridiculous.

What's happening in Iran is unique - based on history.

Watch it take form - later.

[rageaholic]

The way I see it, the war in Iraq, 11 September etc, is all part of the same morass of radical islam that began in Iran in 1979.

You say the Iranians are a different culture from the Iraqis. Maybe to somebody who appreciates the finer points of Middle Eastern culture. I'm just a guy who reads the papers, I can't be bothered to tell a sunni from a shia a Persian from an Arab or a Yook from a Zook. Until proven otherwise, they're all just moslem garbage.

[nuconvert]

Well, it IS Proven otherwise. But if you don't read, you'll never know.

[nuconvert]

I wasn't crazy about this guy's statement, so I read up a bit.....he's very wishy-washy when it comes to Iran's involvement in terrorism. He thinks there's no proof of Iran's terrorist connections.

[nuconvert]

thanks

[CFC__VRWC]

Nicholas D. Kristof is certainly correct that the Iranians will throw off the yoke of the mullahs, and the best evidence of that eventuality is that the Iranians threw off the yolk of an American-installed dictator whose regime was no stranger to torture chambers.

The word you're looking for here, Mr. Zimmerman, is yoke. A yolk is the part of an egg that serves as the source of nutrition for an embryo within. Hey Slimes editors, what's the matter with you? Don't you guys clean up the spelling and grammatical errors on the letters you print, unless it's the conservative letter full of mistakes that you print once a month so your readers can have a laugh?

[sionnsar]

From his perspective, the Iranian revolution was really a middle-class affair — significantly spurred on by a phalanx of Iranian students educated in the United States and intoxicated by democracy — that was hijacked by the hard-core Islamists.

I knew some of these folks at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the latter 70s (via a Farsi-speaking American). Believe me, they were not at all "intoxicated by democracy." It was socialism (and communism) they were infatuated with.

Came the revolution, a number of them went back home and were never heard from again.

[rageaholic]

Well, it IS Proven otherwise. But if you don't read, you'll never know.

Yeah, yeah. I remember when all the arabophiles were predicting flowers and candies for American troops in iraq. Now I'm looking at a video of iraqis scream allah akbar as they saw the head of a kid from Pennsylvania. Get a grip.

[McGavin999]

The Iranian people are not Arabs, they are the original Persians and quite a different people altogether.

[nuconvert]

"flowers and candies for American troops in iraq"

Apparently you missed the photos ....check out past posts by Diogenesis, and Ragtimecowgirl.

This thread will get you
started .......http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1133275/posts

The people on the video are terrorists, not the average Iraqi.
I'm not the one who needs to get a grip.
Stop believing the left-wing media hype.

[nuconvert]

LOL

[Doctor Stochastic]

I can't be bothered to tell a sunni from a shia a Persian from an Arab or a Yook from a Zook.

You won't mind being lumped in with the other Arabs, then. Some people can't be bothered to tell the difference between you and an Arab.

[F14 Pilot]

You're wrong!

[rageaholic]

Persia is just another part of the same morass of islam.

[blackie]

Let Freedom Ring ~ Bump!