Stars (and Stripes) in Their Eyes

To add to Iranians' weariness, there are the interminable lines that have accompanied the government's new gas-rationing scheme. During the busy early evening, it takes an hour to fill up on gas, and policemen are required to direct the snarled traffic. Ahmadinejad has insinuated that the unpopular plan was a precaution against possible Western sanctions, but most people I spoke with considered it another instance of his administration's mismanagement.

Beyond the new penury, Ahmadinejad has also resurrected unpopular invasions into Iranians' private lives. On the second day of my trip, newspapers announced that police would begin raiding office buildings and businesses to ensure that women were wearing proper Islamic dress. One of my girlfriends, an executive secretary, told me that as a precaution, her office had set up a coded warning message to be broadcast over the intercom. On the third day, police swept our street to confiscate illegal satellite dishes. I climbed to the roof to remove the coding device from my parents-in-law's dish. Such gadgets are costly to replace, unlike the dish itself, and the raids of recent months have made Iranians expert in such matters. "I'm going to miss 'American Idol,' " a neighbor sighed, fiddling with her satellite dish.

Yet another issue helping restore Iranians' regard for the United States is the withering relevance of Iran's suspected nuclear program. At the height of his popularity, Ahmadinejad successfully rallied public support around the program with catchy slogans (at least in Farsi) such as, "Nuclear energy is our absolute right." But that defiance failed to win Iran much more than the disagreeable whiff of global-pariah status, moving many Iranians to reconsider the costs of nuclear enrichment. Today, a scrawl of graffiti on my old street mocks the slogan: "Danish pastry is our absolute right." (Authorities ordered the city's Danish pastry shops to rebrand themselves after a Danish newspaper ran cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in 2005 that were deemed offensive.)

Of course, a minority of Iranians -- perhaps the 10 percent of society that sociologists estimate is hard-line -- still hate the Great Satan. But the strain of anti-Americanism in Iran is more mellow than the rage found elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world. The Palestinian cause is less deeply felt here, making it easier for even Washington's critics to view relations pragmatically. Most Iranians belong to generations with compelling reasons to admire the United States. Those old enough to remember the shah's era are nostalgic for the prosperity and international standing Iran once enjoyed; those born after the revolution see no future for themselves in today's Iran and adopt their parents' gilded memories as their own. These longings have young and old Iranians alike following the U.S. election. Most seem to favor Sen. Barack Obama, who they believe will patch up relations with Iran.

Strolling down Revolution Street, a wide avenue in the polluted heart of Tehran dominated by murals of war martyrs in outmoded glasses, I stopped to chat with a young man selling bootleg DVDs of American films and TV series such as "Lost." "Before the revolution, we had relations" with the United States, he noted. "Was that bad for us? We were at the top of the region, the world."

Many Iranians make this point. But the mullahs in power still can't figure out how to stop being U.S.-hating revolutionaries. Until they do, most people here will consider the "Great Satan" just great.

azadeh1355@gmail.com

Azadeh Moaveni covers Iran for Time magazine. She is the author of "Lipstick Jihad" and a new memoir, "Honeymoon in Tehran," which will be published next February.