I have to say...I have always enjoyed the Iranians who I had a chance to meet. I found them to be intelligent, thoughtful people with a well developed sense of humor.
The ones that I knew were grief stricken at what happened to their country, as was I.
I always kept in mind they were not part of the Arab world, and spoke Farsi rather than arabic. I still think that, although an entire generation has had to live under the hand of those moronic idiots who rule the country, and that generation has known nothing else. I wonder how much of the "Great Satan" rhetoric has stuck in their heads.
Very little. The mullahs have made a mess out of the economy and they are just as corrupt as the Shah ever was. The Iranians don't want to be a pariah nation. We should support regime change and offer real assistance to groups inside and outside Iran to remove the mullahs. We should not be negotiating with them and legitimizing a regime that is not supported by the majority of the people. The US has faded as the number 1 enemy, i.e., Great Satan. Much of the rhetoric coming out of Tehran today is a feeble attempt to create an external threat to divert people's attention from the problems at home.