Author: opinionstogo

There was an overseas ceremony recently that should give all Americans cause for pause and reflection, if not an irony fix for the ages.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright formally dedicated a new U.S. consulate building in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The new American consulate reestablishes a diplomatic foothold in the erstwhile Saigon for the first time since 1975. That’s when U.S. diplomats fled the advancing North Vietnamese forces that overran the American-backed South Vietnamese army in the last stage of that tragic American misadventure.

In her prepared remarks, America’s Iron Lady said, “The United States and Vietnam will forever be linked by history. But by continuing to work together to transcend that tragic legacy, we can add to our shared history bright new chapters of hope and mutual prosperity.”

That shared history, of course, includes more than 50,000 dead GIs and another 2,000 service personnel still listed as missing in action a generation later. It even brought down a president.

Meanwhile in Washington, House and Senate negotiators are still trying to wrangle a compromise that would at least permit an easing of the embargo on sales of food and medical supplies to Cuba. Through four decades and nine presidents, beginning with President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, Americans have been banned from selling much of anything to Cuba. To those who have questioned presidential guts in dealing with the South Florida Cuban-American lobby, the Administrations’ responses have been, in effect: “That’s the way it embargoes. We don’t want to be known as the Administration that ‘gave in’ to Castro.”

Because Fidel Castro has refused to die off, the embargo lives on. Its impact, especially in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s implosion, hurts nobody but American business interests and the Cuban people who, like people everywhere, are hardly responsible for the government they’re saddled with.

We’ve never been to war with Cuba, and the island was never a killing field for American soldiers. The embargo is a counterproductive, foreign-policy incongruity that induces global alienation and ridicule — and that’s from our allies.

Yet, inexplicably, a new chapter of “hope and mutual prosperity” applies only to Vietnam, not Cuba. Explained Albright: “It will help us better serve the American business community, which is concentrated here in the south (of Vietnam).” That eclectic business community, it should be noted, even includes the J. Walter Thompson ad agency. Perhaps JWT should pitch the Cuba account.

But back in the states, farm groups and agribusinesses continue to clamor for their piece of “mutual prosperity” and permission to move a glut of grain that has been depressing commodity prices. Such beseeching is belittling when the rationales of humanitarian aid, enlightened self-interest and common sense should be carrying the day.

So, while American officials in Vietnam say they now expect to receive up to 25,000 requests each year for permission to live permanently in the United States, Cuban smugglers continue to traffick in those fleeing from the deprivations ensured by the U.S. embargo.

Isn’t it, after forty years of failed policy, time to “transcend that tragic legacy”?

TEHRAN– “Some places you have to see for yourself.” That was my stock, terse-to-a-fault answer, and I stuck with it when queried about plans to spend some time recently in Iran.

THAT Iran.

Of American hostage-taking fame. Of “Death-to-the-Great Satan” renown. Of state-sponsorship-of-terrorism repute. Of Satanic Verses hitmen. Of teenage “martyrs.” Of dyspeptic, stern-visaged mullahs. Of sepulchral, chador-shrouded women. Of Luddite license toward the Internet. Of Koranic cops. Of heavy-handed censorship. Of institutionalized anti-Semiticism. Of public executions. Of earthquakes. Of awful television. Of squat toilets. Of no beer.

What’s not to dislike except for world-class worry beads and nickel-a-liter gas?

“You are American, yes? I’ve been to Kansas City. America is a great country. Americans are great people. These are my children.”

The longer answer says that too much that matters to America — and the rest of the world — has happened here. The fall of the Shah and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini made us examine our culture as well as our foreign policy.

The short list of America’s favorite autocrats was subsequently downsized. It also forced us to acknowledge Islam beyond knowing it has something to do with Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan and a bunch of black bouncers in bow ties.

To know a country and a people only through the filtered lens of the American media is to court collective ignorance. Arguably, too many Americans are already there on matters historical and geographical.

“Mister — you American? Welcome. You-like-Iranian-people-we-like Americans.”

A civilization — Persian –that has been around for 2,500 years and weathered invasions by Greeks, Arabs, Mongols and McDonalds has some kind of staying power. It is the only country — Persia officially became Iran in 1935 — invaded by Arabs that retained its language — Farsi — and culture.

Its 64 million people — from Third World, desert-dwelling nomads to first-among-equals nabobs in the gated communities of North Tehran — are as proud as they are stubborn. They are also young. Half the country’s population wasn’t around for the Khomeini-led revolution of 1979.

Although 20 years removed from the Islamic Revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy, the 444-day, hostage ordeal understandably remains — for many Americans — a defining, viscerally humiliating and enraging image in the demonizing of America. For many in the West — especially the U.S. — Islam has replaced communism as the Cold War villain. And nobody among the one-fifth of the planet who practice Islam has been more villainous than the theocracy from hell, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But a funny thing happened on the way to reinforcing an unflattering stereotype of the country so many Americans love to hate. The Iranian people wouldn’t cooperate.

“HELLL-o, HELLL-o. Sorry for my English not so good. Good bye and welcome.”

Not in Tehran, a noisy, nondescript, motorcycle-and-car-clogged city of more than 10 million people — most of whom appear to be crossing the street at any given time — and hundreds of abandoned construction projects. Nor in the sprawling, time-warp bazaars of Shiraz and Isfahan, the latter an oasis of beauty in an ancient ruins, desolation-dominated countryside. Not in scores of produce and spice shops; not in mosques; not at newsstands; not near universities; and not by ad hoc soccer fields.

The Iranian people were uniformly open, gracious and typically taken aback. Some NATO allies wouldn’t have been so hospitable. Old and (especially) young, male and (even) female; civilians, clerics, cops. And yes, there are mild-mannered mullahs and disarmingly friendly soldiers.

Iraqis, afterall, are the real, eight-years-worth-of-devastating-war enemy in Iran. And if Iranians just want to feel superior, there’s always the lowly Afghanis, currently straining resources as refugees from Taliban barbarities.

“Welcome to Yazd. We like Americans. Do you like futbol? World Cup? Iran 2, USA, 1. But America is good team too.”

Americans, however, seem viewed more as intriguing curiosity pieces, unwitting hostages, so to speak, of Middle Eastern stereotypes and a government still officially inimical to their own. Erstwhile support for the Shah is more a colonial footnote than a reason to dislike Americans now. And it’s been 11 years since the USS Vincennes downed a commercial Iranian airliner.

It’s as if a decade removed from the death of ultimate zealot Khomeini, there’s a sense that so much of what impacts Iranian lives today — U.S. trade sanctions notwithstanding — has increasingly little to do with America and nothing to do with Americans. It has much more to do with depressed oil prices, refugee problems, a population explosion, xenophobic attitudes and governmental meddling in the economy.

“Mister. Can we speak English to you? We-like-Americans-do-you-like-President-Khatami?”

Sure, the Iranian government is restrictive and paranoid, but who can explain governments anyhow, including our own? And yes, the name Monica Lewinsky, embarrassingly enough, did surface but only to buttress the contention that government leaders are rarely worthy of those they govern.

Right now Iran is undergoing serious, sometimes strident, internal debate on just how much to open up to the West and how much to ease up on its citizens without running afoul of Islamic guidelines. The personally popular president, Mohammad Khatami, does a high-wire act daily over the political mosh pit of religious hard liners and pragmatic reformers.

“I think what you have experienced in your travels is a true reflection of how Iranian people feel about Americans,” summarized Akbar Heshani, the owner of one of the myriad Persian carpet shops in the Isfahan bazaar. “You are admired as a people because of your many accomplishments and your country, of course, is the only super power,” he said. “The Iranian people are surprised and probably flattered you are here.

“All that’s happened in the past is between governments,” he added. “We are different, but we can still be friends.”For now, that will have to do.

There are no official diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran. Only recently has the U.S. government backed off its embargo on all trade with what is still considered a pariah state that supports terrorism and fancies weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions are being waived on a case-by-case basis on the export of food and medicine.

As for Iran, although President Khatami has called for better relations with the U.S., he has stopped short of endorsing an official dialogue. But the good news is the reminder that individuals will always have more in common than in conflict.

What’s amazing, however, is that we have to keep relearning that basic lesson in human nature. People not caught up in governmental power politics tend to get along.

Which means that diplomatically, a friendly “salaam,” a courteous smile and an extended hand will just have to do — nicely as it turns out.

Let the (Friendship) Force be with you

The U.S. State Department officially — and euphemistically — warns all U.S. citizens to “defer” travel to Iran. There are no formal diplomatic or consular relations between the U.S. and Iran, although the Swiss government, through its embassy in Tehran, serves as protecting power for U.S. interests there.

But nobody pretends a surrogate government can “protect” an American the way an American Embassy can — provided, of course, no one swarms its grounds, scales its walls and takes its citizens hostage.

The Iranian government, however, does grant visas to American citizens and operates an Interests Section in Washington. Application can be made there — and a visa granted subject to review by Iran’s Foreign Ministry. The understandably few Americans interested in traveling to Iran are advised to allow at lea
st several months for the visa process to run its bureaucratic course.

In my case, there was also the travel vehicle of the Friendship Force, a non-political organization that fosters friendship among private citizens worldwide. I traveled with a contingent of 24 other Friendship Force “ambassadors.” The Friendship Force expedited the visa paperwork by utilizing the good offices of Canada, which often intercedes for the officially estranged countries.

Co-founded more than 20 years ago by former President Jimmy Carter, the FF is based on the premise that friendship — facilitated by direct people-to-people contact — can be a catalyst for improved world relations. Atlanta-based Friendship Force International now includes clubs in more than 350 communities around the world — from Brazil to Belarus.

Additional information on The Friendship Force is available at (404) 522-9490.

Land of contrasts, country in transition

Some things you can’t blame on an all day, all-night, twitchy-limbed, bleary-eyed flight from Tampa to Tehran via New York and Frankfurt.

For instance, upon the approach to Tehran there was an abrupt morphing of all the women aboard Lufthansa flight 405 into a sea of cloaked, scarfed specters. No manner of eye-rubbing and double-taking could change it.

One moment you’re next to a woman; the next moment you’re beside a speed bump. For some, make-up became even less prominent. Whether Westernized Iranians returning from overseas or non-Islamic Republic visitors, they were all gearing up to cover up.

Since 1983, public “veiling” has been mandatory for all women in Iran. And there are no summer-color loopholes. Earth tones rule.

Then there’s the Customs Declaration for Arriving Passengers. “In The Name of God” is emblazoned at the top of the form to remind all that the Deity is also the Ultimate Bureaucrat in Iran.

Anyhow, you’re asked to declare that not only are you not bringing guns, ammunition, drugs, alcoholic beverages and glossies of the late Shah into Iran, but you’re also not toting cassettes, CDs, books, magazines and films that are “in violation of public order and decency and national and religious values of the country.”

Party on.

After a two-hour airport welcome — disguised as a paranoia attack by officials at the sight of 25 Americans — it’s on to an official briefing. To quote a government tour guide: “You must remember that there is no alcohol available here. It is forbidden. Not in the hotel. Not in restaurants

This summer’s pro-democracy protests in Iran took much of the West by surprise. It did so because we know so little of that country beyond its image as a terrorist state that sanctioned the taking of American hostages.

Its most recognizable images are anti-American demonstrators, androgynous, chador-shrouded women and grim-looking clerics — all seemingly trying to repeal the 20th century.

What most Americans don’t know is that most Iranians weren’t around for the Revolution of 1979. In fact, two thirds of its 64 million people are under age 25. Its youth, who can start voting at age 15, are the most educated generation in Iran’s history. From 1979 to 1999, literacy went from 58% to 82%. Not surprisingly, they want what most people want — a better life.

This generation knows the revolution unshackled Iranians from an authoritarian dynasty, and that Islam was the vehicle. What many of them also know is that the revolution against a dictatorship was hijacked by the most conservative clerics.

These reactionary mullahs, in turn, crafted a constitution delegating ultimate power to a supreme religious leader — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his 10-year successor, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. Purges, opposition bashing and rigid social restrictions have followed.

When the opportunity came, however, to popularly elect a president in 1997, a mandate for the reformist Mohammad Khatami resulted. Khatami, who favored an opening to the West and democratic reforms at home, won 70% of the youth-skewed vote in a four-way contest. He’ll likely be re-elected next year as well.

While the students respect Khatami, they’ve grown restless for rapid results. They want more republic and less theocracy in the Islamic Republic. And that’s what Khatami, ever mindful that his hard-line opposition ultimately controls the police, the judiciary and the media, can’t deliver at more than a prudent pace. This uneasy state of discontent was shattered when police and vigilante-type activists stormed a Tehran University dormitory and set in motion a series of demonstrations and riotous behavior in a number of Iranian cities.

Journalist Joe O’Neill was traveling in Iran prior to the outbreaks, and he reports on a populace that, for all its recent history and alien Islamic ways, has more in common than conflict with Americans. He was also privy to some of the frustrations simmering among Iranian students.

Just when it appeared that Gov. George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain might both self-destruct in a demolition derby of character assassination, along came the Al Gore-Bill Bradley debate. The high decibel, raucous, celebrity-dotted one at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem sponsored by CNN, Time and the WWF. Call it “Pandermania I.”

This exercise in recrimination, revisionism and rank rejoinders was enough to get Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale and George McGovern looking for their running shoes again. Gore and Bradley forensically flogged each other and tripped over the truth in blatantly pandering to America’s black voters — especially when it came to who was more opposed to racial profiling and more in favor of affirmative action. Neither, however, thought much of Bob Jones University, which doesn’t even have a basketball team.

Bradley won on points if extra credit is given for “white skin privilege” references (4) and sheer persistence of stagecraft. The former New Jersey senator tried repeatedly to reacquaint Gore with the documentation of his five senate votes between 1979 and 1981 to preserve tax-exempt status for colleges that racially discriminate.

It was somehow fitting that the Rev. Al Sharpton was accorded the evening’s leadoff question. It was on racial profiling and police brutality and was framed in the perception that “Many in our community have to live in fear of both the cops and the robbers.”

Too bad that neither candidate had the guts — and indifference to Democratic Party sacrilege and political suicide — to frame the first answer this way: “Many in your community also have to live in fear of professional race baiters who feed off and foment fears, stereotypes and rumors to advance their own agendas.”

Little Richard, where were you when we needed you?

The occasion of Great Britain’s recent decision to suspend Northern Ireland’s fledgling, power-sharing, Protestant-Catholic government had me re-reading my notes from Gerry Adams’ barnstorming American tour last year. Florida was on the itinerary, and I listened to the Sinn Fein leader at the University of Tampa and at Colin Breen’s Four Green Fields Irish Pub near downtown Tampa.

Adams — who’s no Lucky Charms cut-up — can be pleasant and polite. But the tenor of his comments, in the context of the precarious state of the Good Friday Agreement, was as disarming as it was illuminating. Adams is brinkmanship incarnate.

The current deal-breaker, of course, is the IRA’s reluctance to turn over weapons — “decommissioning” as it’s called in the argot of disarmament. And to do it with enough specificity of detail to assure all parties of Sinn Fein’s commitment to non-violence and the 72-day-old, now suspended, Belfast government. As of now, talks remain broken off with the official disarmament panel of Gen. John de Chastelain of Canada. Secure Semtex supplies and caches of automatic weapons are reminders that the IRA is still armed and not ready for the alternative.

In his Tampa appearance, Adams made clear that the Good Friday peace accord and what was to become the shared-power experiment in self-government was merely a “short term, strategic goal.” Unification with the Republic of Ireland remained, unwaveringly, the long-term goal. And, according to Adams, “long term” is not all that “long” as demographic patterns continue to favor Northern Ireland’s Catholic population. More like “15-25 years out,” he said. In other words, a favorable self-determination scenario looms large.

“Irish unity will manifest itself in whatever society people want,” he stated a year ago. “Peace is not just the absence of violence. It’s also justice