Iran's hardliners benefit from war on Iraq

With US and British troops fighting just the other side of the border, Iranian reformists fear their country may withdraw into fundamentalist isolation not seen since the 1980s

At a recent weekly prayer led by Aytollah Mohammed Yazdi at Tehran University, the religious leader's criticism of America's war on Saddam Hussein was met with chants of "death to America" from the assembled crowd, estimated at between five and ten thousand. Its a sign of how public opinion may be hardening around the countries religious leadership.

The war in Iraq also undermines the position of Iran's President, Mohammed Khatami who has argued the case for improving trade ties with the US and other Western countries. At a separate rally outside Tehran, Khatami condemned the invasion of Iraq. Even though many thousands of Iranians lost their lives in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, Khatami sees the US invasion as more worrying than living with Saddam Hussein as a neighbor.

Few in Iran have forgotten that it was the US and other foreign powers that armed Saddam's Iraq in the first place. This is why few Iranians trust American intentions. On a recent trip I went to the martyrs cemetery near where Ayatollah Khomeini is buried and saw thousands of graves of those killed during the Iran/Iraq war. Some who died in battle were as young as 14. I spoke to a family who mourned the anniversary of the death of their 20 year-old soldier son. Even so, his mother is against the war in Iraq. She told me that she fears the US will kill many Shia Muslims there.

The Shia connection between Iran and Iraq is crucial to understanding the feelings of the Iranian people. Since 1980 more than one million Shiites have fled to Iran from Iraq, where they account for 60% of the Iraqi national population. More than 400,000 remain today, most in Tehran. Most Iranians are also Shiites, and they have shared close ties with the Iraqis for hundreds of years.

Even those who escaped Saddam's repression are broadly opposed to the US war in Iraq. They believe that the removal of Saddam should be left to the Iraqi people. The international community should help, but not by sending an army. Most approved of the UN weapons inspections.

For their part, Iranian officials have held informal meetings with US counterparts to talk about Iraq. The Iranian government says it will not interfere militarily but that the US should be aware that this war is putting the whole region in danger. Already the Iranian government is building two more massive refugee camps near the Iraqi border, expecting upwards of a million new refugees.

Few in Iran understand why President Bush has labeled them as part of some axis of evil, along with Iraq and North Korea. Iran fought a bloody war with Iraq for almost a decade. Iran worked with US officials and approved of its war to oust the Taliban from Afghanistan. America's condemnation of Iran appears irrational, even paranoid, to many here.

The most worrying aspect of the US war in Iraq and the designation of Iran as a partner in evil is that it may well lead to religious hardliners getting the upper hand over reformists eager to normalize relations with the West.

Already a crackdown has begun. Last December two pollsters in Tehran were arrested and imprisoned for publishing research showing that 60% of the Iranian people favor closer ties with the US. A professor at Tehran University has been sentenced to death for questioning the clergy's divine right to rule and is awaiting a judgement by the court of appeals. Rumors circulate that respected reformer Ibrahim Yazdi (no relation to the hardline Aytollah Mohammed Yazdi) may soon be jailed.

The feeling here is that any more pressure by the Bush administration may bring a reassertion of absolute power by Iran's clergy and armed forces, making Iran more dangerous and unpredictable than it is today.