DAR AL ISLAM - IRAN: "DOWN WITH THE U.S.A."

Children of Iranian Revolution need change
By David Blair in Teheran

Outside the old American embassy in Teheran, garish murals depict the Statue of Liberty as a grotesque skeleton and banners proclaim "Down with the USA".

This display of anti-American iconography where 52 US diplomats were held hostage for 444 days might appear to symbolise Iran under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's belligerent rule.

Yet nothing could be more misleading. Far from glorying in their president's defiance of the superpower, Iranians are turning against him in ever greater numbers. The first stirrings are now visible of political change which could hasten Mr Ahmadinejad's departure and dramatically change the country's direction.

The president is best known abroad for denying the holocaust and threatening to wipe Israel "from the pages of history". Iranians, however, associate him with hardship and repression.

At a time when high oil prices should be causing an economic boom, inflation has risen to about 40 per cent, hitting the living standards of millions. A country with 130 billion barrels of proven oil reserves - more than anywhere else except Saudi Arabia - has imposed petrol rationing.

"Ahmadinejad is the first president in the history of the Islamic Republic to lose his popularity so quickly," said Mohammed Atrianfar, a leading reformist politician. "He has ruined the hopes of Iranian families for their future and made them pessimists.

"Ahmadinejad has a large amount of self confidence. Either self confident people are well informed and knowledgeable or they are absolutely ignorant about everything. Unfortunately, the president is in the second category."

Mr Ahmadinejad's bellicose foreign policy has bolstered his popularity across the Muslim world - but not inside Iran. At home, he stands accused of playing into America's hands by making it easier for Washington to marshal a coalition against Iran.

"The president does not understand the complexity of the international situation in the post-Cold War era," said Ebrahim Yazdi, who was foreign minister in the first government after the revolution of 1979.

"He has brought up issues which do not have anything to do with Iran's national interest, such as the holocaust. Why he brought that one up, nobody knows."

This "helped America to justify its policies in the Middle East," added Mr Yazdi. "Mr Bush must be very happy with what Mr Ahmadinejad said."

Since taking office in 2005, the president has cracked down on dissent. Three reformist newspapers have been closed and demonstrators are routinely arrested and beaten.

But there is still a degree of freedom of expression. Public criticism of Mr Ahmadinejad is tolerated and other papers which oppose his policies still appear.

"Freedom of expression is needed to supervise all the arms of the government," said a leader in Etemadamelli, a reformist daily. "But President Ahmadinejad still intends to revive the old order. He thinks the nation is stupid."

Politics in Iran moves along a spectrum from liberal reformers to hardline conservatives. While loyal to the Islamic state forged by the revolution, reformists want Iran to enjoy political and economic freedom.

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