PEOPLE WILL SAY WE'RE IN LOVE :

Engaging Iran, slowly (Amitai Etzioni, 6/04/02, Christian Science Monitor)

Iran now tops the State Department's list of seven terrorist-sponsoring states. After 10 days in Iran--four cities, 60 interviews--I have little doubt that the United States is better off engaging Iran, as it does China, rather than trying to isolate it, as it does Iraq.

Regrettably, it is also clear that President Bush's axis-of-evil speech stopped most Iranian reformers cold. Since that address, the reformers' often valiant struggle (some were in jail, some were shot) for a more liberal Islam suddenly seemed unpatriotic, as Iran expects to be attacked by the US sooner or later.

Although the reformers' support is widely based (they have repeatedly won more than 70 percent of the vote), the mainspring of their support is anticlerical, protesting the long list of dictates the unpopular mullahs have imposed on everything personal - from dating to drinking.

However, I did not find any among the scores of Iranians openly criticizing the hard-liners who did not view themselves as patriotic Iranians. Hence, for now, the reformers feel they must lie low. "We don't want to be seen as weakening our nation when under siege," one of their key leaders told an American visitor.

This is particularly disconcerting as Iran, a non-Arab country, was on its way to becoming easily the most liberal nation in the region.

Including Iran in the Axis seems like the one significant misstep the administration has made thus far. Iran could be a windfall, we needn't shake the tree and surely don't need to cut it down. (How's that for an extended metaphor?) Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2002 8:10 AM