The power of Iran

What happens in Iran will define the Middle East for a generation. Western countries suspect the Islamic Republic is developing a nuclear weapon; the Israeli government frequently hints that it may launch a pre-emptive strike.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the American hostage crisis the following year, successive US governments have regarded Iran as a dangerous enemy, while the mullahs and politicians in Tehran have dubbed the USA ‘the Great Satan’, and Britain ‘the Little Satan’.

I’ve been making trips to Iran since 1998, and have found it one of the most exciting, wonderful, frustrating and difficult places to be a journalist. Despite the control the government tries to exert on foreign reporters, Channel 4 News broadcast a week of live broadcasts from Tehran, Qom and Isfahan in 2006.

With an all-Iranian crew, I reported on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s messianic belief that his 2006 speech to the UN General Assembly was guided by the Mahdi, the Hidden Imam of Shi’a Islam – a key to understanding his policies.

More recently, I was on the streets of Tehran as hundreds of thousands of Iranians protested what they believe were rigged presidential elections in 2009. The ‘Green Movement’, characterised by young people sporting green ribbons and tee-shirts, was full of passion and intensity, but, after hundreds, maybe thousands, were imprisoned and tortured, it faded.

Two members of the basij militia, the regime’s enforcers, fled to Britain and told Channel 4 News that first they had been instructed to falsify election results at the mosque where they worked, and then imprisoned because they refused to beat up protestors.

Iranian politics are full of intrigue, family feuds and shifting alliances. The Supreme Leader holds the most power, but the incumbent – Ayatollah Khamanei – doesn’t command the same reverence accorded his predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini.

President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, and has a talent for offending Israel and the USA. Politicians who urge ‘restraint’ on the Israelis fear that, if provoked, Iran could unleash terror attacks in the Middle East and beyond, and interefere with shipping through the Straits of Hormuz.

With US troops stationed next door in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and UN sanctions because of its nuclear programme, Iran feels besieged.

With US troops stationed next door in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and UN sanctions because of its nuclear programme, Iran feels besieged. After years of competing rhetoric with the US, hopes that President Obama’s emollient tone would bridge the gap between the two countries have been dashed.

Vast reserves of oil and gas should make the Islamic Republic wealthy, but it’s not. Infrastructure is crumbling, power cuts are frequent, sometimes they ration petrol because the country has so little refining capacity. China and Malaysia have invested in the oil and gas sector, but UN sanctions – reinforced by extra US and EU measures, and exacerbated poor economic policies – make it hard for Iran to develop. Unemployment is rife; the sixty per cent of the population who are under 30 fear for the future.

And yet Iranians are proud of their ancient Persian civilisation, their rich heritage of poetry, architecture, music and painting, much of it pre-Islamic. To visit Iran is to step into a world of culture and deep history. This is a place which matters, which has always mattered.

It is one of the most important places for Channel 4 News to report, however difficult that may be, because news from Iran may affect not just the Middle East but the whole world.