L.A. Is a Den of Iranian Intrigue and Ambition
Roozbeh Farahanipour was jailed and beaten during student protests in Iran in 1999. Today, he sits in a cramped office above a Persian-language bookstore on Westwood Boulevard, speaking in low tones about the pro-Tehran "agents" he says still dog him.
Two years ago, after hostile men confronted his Iranian activist group at public forums, he walked down the bustling avenue -- past Persian restaurants, Persian pop music vendors and the publisher of the 1,200-page Iranian Yellow Pages -- to the FBI office a few blocks away.
There, he said, U.S. agents pressed him for details on espionage and provocateurs.
Such relationships are the political currency of the real-life Casablanca that is "Irangeles," the largest Iranian community outside Iran. Here, across miles of urban sprawl, from Encino to Beverly Hills to Westwood, intrigue over who might be spying on whom abounds.
Los Angeles has become a key location for gathering intelligence on Tehran. A CIA station here has spent a decade recruiting informants among Iranian expatriates and businessmen who travel to Iran. The local FBI field office is wooing Iranians as sources -- and investigating others as potential terrorists or spies.
This activity is growing in intensity as the Bush administration tries to learn more about Iran's nuclear ambitions and possible Iranian-sponsored terrorism in this country.
A mix of political causes and personal ambitions fuels Irangeles. As the Iranian New Year dawns, Reza Pahlavi -- the late Shah of Iran's heir to the Peacock Throne -- is holding court in Beverly Hills. Exile activists from as far away as Paris are meeting in Woodland Hills to create a "coalition of liberation." Iranian intellectuals in the San Fernando Valley are debating pro-democracy petitions circulating half a world away in Tehran.
Faced with the sudden prospect of relevance, exile activists are jockeying for recognition from U.S. policymakers. They are touting contacts with the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA.
They boast of tete-a-tetes with members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff, and drop the name "Elliott" -- as in Elliott Abrams, Bush's deputy national security advisor. They prominently display Christmas cards from Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, an early backer of legislation that would provide financial support to the Iranian opposition. In Washington, they're making the rounds like actors looking for an agent.
