Islamic Republic

Whispering like conspirators, the two cousins hook their thumbs in their belt loops, skim cocky eyes over the women and swivel, stiff-legged from their hips, like the men they have become. Across the room, and a few steps away on the gender spectrum, a man with shaggy hair wrinkles a pug nose in the mirror and struggles to drape a silky scarf over his head in the style of Islamic womanhood.

Not long ago, an astute reader noted that it has been nearly two years since I wrote in a column that "most experts now estimate that Iran needs about 18 months to complete a nuclear device and a missile to carry it. " His point - that those estimates were way off - was a good one, especially since experts are still estimating that Iran is 18 months away from being able to build a nuclear weapon. So what gives? Why does Iran always seem to be about 18 months away from a nuclear bomb, at least in the eyes of U.S. officials?

About 300 Iranians and Iranian-Americans clustered outside the Federal Building in Westwoodlate Sunday afternoon, protesting alleged human rights violations by the Iranian government and calling for "death to the Islamic republic."

With the possibility of a confrontation looming with Iran, one historical example that should command American attention in its hour of decision - but is being neglected - is the bloody conflict that Iran fought against Iraq from 1980 to 1988. It is worth recalling the fierceness of that struggle to gain some appreciation of the enormity of any decision by Washington to go to war with Iran, for it may foretell what Tehran is capable of doing when it feels its Islamic Revolution is at stake.

The plot may seem familiar: A group of wayward and foulmouthed young men volunteer to go to the front because of their devotion to their bomber-jacket-wearing ringleader. They are wisecracking, rude and undisciplined, singing bawdy songs and breaking prohibitions against smoking and gambling. But eventually they become heroes, proving themselves on the battlefield. But in the Islamic Republic of Iran, such a less-than-holy depiction of the men who fought the "War of Sacred Defense," as the 1980s conflagration with Iraq is sometimes called, was groundbreaking.

On June 20, a young Iranian woman was shot dead at one of the mass protests that followed the contested re- election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Millions of people around the world watched video of Neda Agha-Soltan hemorrhaging on Tehran's Karegar Street, and hers became the tragic, beautiful and galvanizing face of the reform movement in Iran. Witnesses implicated a member of the Basij, the governmental militia, in Agha-Soltan's death. But an Iranian ambassador and ayatollah quickly pinned her shooting on the CIA and her fellow protesters, while a broadcasting official -- and a government-sponsored documentary that aired last month -- said the death had been simulated by the Western news media and by Agha-Soltan herself.

Haider Abdullah leaned back in his makeshift market stall and pointed to the red television set beneath his arm. "This?" he said with a toothy grin. "It was free." Business is booming at the Thieves' Market in Kabul these days thanks to lawlessness in the streets. Widespread looting and car theft have accompanied the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

For the first time since glasnost liberated the millions of Muslims of Soviet Central Asia, Dushanbe's main mosques were empty Friday. And for the first time that anyone here could recall, the city's five Islamic priests canceled their sacred Friday prayers. It was the latest round in Soviet Central Asia's 70-year war between Islam and communism.

There's a wry joke going around the Iranian capital these days. Did you know, a wag will ask, that Iranian television is now black and white? Black turban on channel one, white turban on channel two. The moral of this story is, just when the world was awaiting the full-color debut of a new Islamic republic--a kinder, gentler Iran under the stewardship of President Hashemi Rafsanjani, with new openings to the West and a more tolerant social climate at home--the mullahs are back.

For two hours one day in early 2008, a tall, silver-haired man sat in an office in Iran's ornate Ministry of Foreign Affairs compound. He came to beg, plead and charm. But the officials just looked bored, recalls Philippe Welti, who for more than four years served as both Switzerland's envoy and Washington's representative to the Islamic Republic, as he discussed the case of a young man on death row who had committed a crime while a juvenile.

A court in Tehran has sentenced to death a former U.S. Marine of Iranian descent who was convicted of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency, Iranian media reported Monday. The sentencing of Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, 28, is likely to add to the tension between the United States and Iran, which has been escalating over the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program. Prosecutors accused Hekmati of "cooperation with an enemy government, membership in the CIA and attempts to accuse Iran of supporting terrorism," the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

It is approaching five years since my father, Robert "Bob" Levinson, disappeared on Kish Island off the coast of Iran in March 2007. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that my family had received proof my father is alive and is believed to be held somewhere in southwest Asia. Earlier this month, my family released that proof, a video we received in November 2010 of my father pleading for help. We had kept it private in order not to jeopardize the FBI's continuing investigation into his disappearance.

It's not the first time Israel has hinted it might strike Iran's nuclear facilities. Whisper campaigns about a possible surprise attack have leaked out before and sometimes appear timed to help U.S. efforts to rally international support for sanctions against Tehran. But the current round of speculation about an airstrike - fueled by recent statements by anonymous Israeli officials and some high-profile missile and military flight tests last week - sparked an unusually public debate here about whether Israel should take such a step at this time.

The world has grown accustomed to Iranian bluster. But even by the standards of the Islamic Republic, Adm. Habibollah Sayari's call last week to deploy the Iranian navy near the U.S. coast is stunning. The Pentagon knows, of course, that Iranian war vessels won't come near America's shores any time soon. As White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "We don't take these statements seriously, given that they do not reflect at all Iran's naval capabilities. " The Iranian admiral may bark, but he doesn't have much of a bite.

A deal between beleaguered Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his opponents has given control of Iran's crucial Oil Ministry to a commander of the Revolutionary Guard who is under international sanctions, according to analysts and a former industry official in Tehran. Ahmadinejad, his rivals in parliament and leaders of the Revolutionary Guard put aside months of differences this week and appointed four new Cabinet members, including the controversial Brig. Gen. Rostam Ghassemi as overseer of the country's vast oil and natural gas riches.

Even as Israel rallies other nations to boycott Iran, its own commercial sanctions against the Islamic Republic are outdated, vague and poorly enforced, say lawmakers and legal analysts in Jerusalem who are pushing the government to strengthen such measures. The effort took on added urgency last month after an embarrassing U.S. crackdown on Ofer Bros. Group, one of Israel's largest conglomerates, which the State Department found had violated American sanctions against Iran by using a Singapore subsidiary to sell an oil tanker to an Iranian front company.

A brunet in a yellow strapless gown strolls with her friends through the old city, while nearby a pair of young toughs on Kawasaki motorbikes rocket down the street, helmets off. The beat here is set to the rhythm of two new radio stations, 97.3 Farah FM and 105.7 Mix FM, that pump out tunes by the Foo Fighters and 50 Cent.

Despite growing evidence that Iran is pushing for an early end to the Lebanon hostage crisis and attempting to ease its international isolation, the Bush Administration is resisting suggestions--some from within its own ranks--that it should move to improve relations with the Islamic republic. For now, the Administration has concluded it should maintain its deep-freeze policy toward Iran, even if all Western hostages are released soon, a senior Administration official said.

The Israeli government moved Thursday to distance itself from one of the country's largest private conglomerates after embarrassing allegations emerged that the company violated U.S. sanctions against Iran by selling an oil tanker to an Iranian firm through an intermediary. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the U.S. Congress on Tuesday about the dangers of Iran and lambasted some nations for failing to do more to halt the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions, the State Department announced that the Israeli-owned Ofer Bros.