On the Streets of Tehran, 'We Like America'

Michael Slackman, The New York Times:

Outside the mosque where Iran's president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, went to vote Friday, a parade of cars, trucks and scooters rumbles by, day in and day out, right over a picture of an American flag painted on the blacktop road.

The message is unmistakable, that America is still the Great Satan, the enemy of the people of Iran, the nation vilified by the grandfather of this country's Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and to this day chided by today's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But Hamid Reza Solimaai is embarrassed by that flag on the ground. So are Sayed Reza Mirsani, Manochek Janshidi and Mohsen Malek Mohammadi. All work in shops on Samanegan Street, the road in East Tehran where the flag is painted, and all said they see that flag in the road as a relic of an era that has passed.

"The government has imposed this on people's minds, painting flags on the road," said Solimaai, who was working Monday in a closet-sized storefront repairing tires. "Almost all the people hate this."

Mirsani labored over a blast furnace of an oven, baking bread.

"I can recall the good old days, before the revolution, when we had good relations with the United States," he said. "We all lived better. Now we live worse."

In the realm of international relations, the United States and Iran are enemies. American officials attacked Iran's presidential elections as undemocratic, while Khamenei said that the 60 percent turnout "humiliated" the United States. But on the streets of Tehran, from the gritty neighborhoods in the south, to retail areas in the center of town, to the posh northern neighborhoods, America is spoken of more like an estranged cousin, maybe an annoying cousin, but nevertheless one with whom people would like to reconcile. READ MORE

"The people of the U.S. live like us," said Mohammadi, as he worked inside his film processing shop along Samanegan Street. "The politics are in the hands of politicians. Ordinary people cannot change this. I would love to go to the United States, not necessarily to live there, but to see how they live and how they feel about Iranians."

The election of Ahmadinejad, a religious conservative aligned with some of the country's most reactionary forces and who takes office Aug. 3, has raised some concern in Europe and the United States that the new president would aggravate the already strained relations with the West.

But in his first news conference on Sunday, Ahmadinejad sprinkled small overtures to the West between his bombast. On the streets, it was clear in conversations with dozens of people over the last week that there is no appetite for getting into another showdown with the United States. In fact, most people said they are hoping for just the opposite.

"This is stupid," Mahmoud Safteri said of the flag on the roadway, as he stopped into the bakery to buy some bread. "Tell them it's not the Iranian people. Tell them it's the government."

Ahmadinejad and his followers have taken a tough line on foreign policy, one rooted in a sense that the United States does not show Iran respect, and that resonates with the public. Almost everyone interviewed said that for relations between the two countries to improve, the United States would have to treat Iran as an equal, not as a second-class country.

At Ahmadinejad's headquarters two days before the election last Friday, Hassan Khalili, a spokesman for the campaign, said, with his voice rising in anger: "When foreigners talk about this country, they laugh and make fun of us."

But like many others, even Ahmadinejad's closest supporters made a distinction between the elected leaders, and the people. When asked if he meant all Americans, Khalili looked shocked, and said "No, we like the American people," then leaned over and kissed an American reporter on the cheek.

Throughout the Middle East, attitudes toward the United States are often far more nuanced than the images suggested by images often played on evening television news programs of protesters burning American flags or effigies of President George W. Bush.

Many people who want more democratic governments in this region, whether on the left or the right, say, however reluctantly, that they view the United States as an effective vehicle to force change in regimes unwilling to yield power.

In Iran, attitudes toward the United States are even more positive, in part, it seems, because so many Iranians know someone living there. Solimaai, the tire repairman, reached behind a stack of tires and grabbed a laminated business card for a body shop in Harbor City, California. He said it is owned by his sister, Fatima, and her husband, who have lived in the United States for 20 years.

"I'd very much at least like to go and see the United States," he said.

Across town, as the roadway feeds into an overpass leading to the center of the city, motorists see a huge image of an American flag painted on the side of an apartment building. The image, which is about five stories tall, has skeletons in place of stars, and the red stripes are the trails of bombs falling to the ground. "Down With U.S.A." it says in English at the top of the flag, and on the bottom, in Persian, it says "We won't go along with America, even for one moment."

"It's ridiculous," said a man standing on the sidewalk below. The man, a driver for a government official, became frightened when his boss arrived, and he hurried off without giving his name.

But two blocks up the road, Ahamad Yaghobi, who was working behind the counter of his jewelry shop, said, "We don't hate America. We like to have better relations. It's just the governments."

The single largest symbol of Iran and America's troubled relations is still the former U.S. Embassy, which was sacked and its employees taken hostage during the revolution that brought the Islamic government to power in 1979.

"We will never go along with the United States, the Great Satan," reads one of many anti-American slogans on the red brick wall that surrounds the compound. "The United States is the top of all criminals," read another.

But there are no longer crowds in the streets chanting slogans. Pedestrians hurry by without even glancing up.

"These are things that are done by the government people and people don't necessarily like them," said Mohsen Hasseni, an accounting student as he walked by the wall. "It was political tit for tat as far as Iran was concerned. That's all."