Members of Iran's Assembly of Experts, a powerful clerical panel charged with choosing or dismissing Iran's supreme leader, attend their session, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008. The Assembly of Experts is an elected body of 86 clerics given role of overseeing the supreme leader's performance, but their main job is to select a successor after his death. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) Few Things Are As They Seem In Tehran -- Yahoo News/AP
TEHRAN, Iran - They file in slowly, patiently submitting to body searches, men in one line, black-clad, head-scarved women in another. Most are poor, old or very young, and most are ready for some America-bashing.
It's Friday, the Muslim holy day, and thousands of Iran's faithful are again gathering at Tehran University's main campus for what has become a weekly ritual; the men under a sprawling blue metal canopy that shelters up to 7,000, the women close by but set apart.
The heat is searing and the mood placid. But suddenly, the diminutive mullah leading the prayers is gone — and in an instant the atmosphere turns as confrontational as the new message being hurled into the microphone by his belligerent black-bearded replacement.
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My Comment: Many of us in the west view Iran as a monolithic Islamic state with clear objectives and goals .... many of which are a clear and present danger to us. The reality is quite different.
On one hand their objectives and support for terrorism makes them a target for us. But on the other hand many of them do not only want to be like us, but have made it clear that they do not brace the ideology and intolerance of their religious leaders.
The direction of Iran is for Iranians to decide .... but their support for terrorism and their advocation for the destruction of other states puts them down a slippery slope that has consequences. This is something that they should be aware of .... and now.