Report From Iran: Should We Really Bomb These People?

I'm in Shiraz, on the way to Esfahan.

It's good to get out of gray, smoggy Tehran, one of the least photogenic cities in the world, where black is the new black, from the hejabs on down.

One of the attractions of Shiraz is the tomb of Hafez, a Persian poet from the 14th century. It's thronged at night. Iranians bring flowers, then stand or kneel beside the sarcophagus and recite his poems. My personal reaction is, this is how writers should always be treated.

Iranians are among the most gracious and hospitable people I've ever met.

The question, of course, is whether we should bomb these people?

In America today, we tend to see things in Manichaean terms. That is, we divide things into absolute opposites, light and dark, good and evil, us and them.

We could, if we went back far enough, blame that on them. The word Manichaean refers to the Persian prophet Mani (from around 250 AD). The whole notion of good and evil, with man in the middle, having to make a choice, then rewarded and condemned in an afterlife, goes back to an even earlier Persian prophet, Zoroaster, from around 1,000 BC. Those ideas entered Judaism during the Babylonian exile and the liberation of the Jews by Cyrus the Great of Persia, and from there into Christianity.

There are still Zoroastrians and Jews in modern-day Persia, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

These are people with a rich and varied history. A very humanistic history.

The question is, why should we bomb these people?

The answer is that they are part of the Axis of Evil!

Iranians are somewhat confused by that designation.

The United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, by a ragged group of conspirators called Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, headquartered in Afghanistan, where they were protected and nurtured by the Taliban. The Taliban were, and are, fanatical, fundamentalist Sunnis. They're the ones who put women in burkhas, those full-body coverings and veils; required men to be bearded; and banned all music, television, movies, photographs, statues, stuffed animals and dolls.

The Taliban came to power in 1996. They were supported by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

They were opposed by the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance was supported by Russia, India and, most of all, by Iran.

The United States was neutral from 1996 to 2001. After 9/11, we demanded that Afghanistan's Taliban government hand over Osama bin Laden. When it refused, we entered the war, primarily with air power, in support of the Northern Alliance. As Ray Takeyh wrote in Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic:

American links with the Northern Alliance were fragmentary ... Afghan opposition groups [were] suspicious of the United States. Tehran's mediation proved essential ... Iran also provided intelligence ... agreed to rescue American pilots ... allowed some 165,000 tons of U.S. food aid to traverse its territory ... [after the fighting] Iran was instrumental in crafting the interim Afghan government.

Iran's president Khatami said, "Afghanistan provides the two regimes [the United States and Iran] with a perfect opportunity to improve relations."

The Bush administration embraced the people who had given the Taliban and Al Qaeda safe haven (Pakistan) and money (Saudi Arabia and the Emirates) and declared Iran, who aided us in our war against the Taliban, as part of the Axis of Evil.

The question is, shouldn't we bomb them because, in addition to being one of the two remaining parts of the Axis of Evil, they are part of the Islamo-Fascist Alliance to rule the world?

We moved on from the pleasures of Shiraz, to Esfahan which is a treasure. A miracle.

In the 16th century, when Shah Abbas I made it the capital of the Safavid dynasty, it was probably the greatest city in the world. It has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, along with the Great Wall of China, the Statue of Liberty, the Taj Mahal, and the historic center of St. Petersburg.