March 21 will usher another New Year for 70 million Iranians. In the outgoing year, like so many others in the past, the majority worked harder to live with dignity.
Things were not easy. An economy handicapped by state interference, obsolete legislation, mismanagement and political divisions in high place did not make life any better for the majority.
Ordinary folks most affected by decisions, or the lack of it, by politicians do not make any attempt to hide their frustrations and disappointment at the slow pace of political, economic and social reforms initiated by the second Khatami administration. But the more informed critics have reason to believe the outgoing government also had its own pluses in responsible governance, and given the circumstances it would be deceptive to demand more from an embattled government.
Having openly rejected the belief in conspiracy theories and, at the same time, singled out mismanagers in the government and the army of state-affiliated bodies, Iran Daily has grown further to look at the broader picture and put the blame where it belongs.
Our position on domestic and international developments may have shifted from time to time as we broaden our horizons, but we have kept our eyes open to the ground realities and the formidable adversaries committed to humiliating Iran and Iranians.
America is one country that has tried and relatively succeeded in making life difficult for rulers and the ruled in Iran. Crude hostility from Washington over our nuclear program, human rights, support for “terrorism“, democracy....is not a new enterprise. The formidable superpower has been at our back for more than a quarter century and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution deposed the Shah of Iran.
The former monarch was Washington’s closest and most trusted ally in the strategic region and allowed the Yankees to plunder Iranian wealth under different guises. One was the presence of more than 50,000 American ’military advisers’ who were more parasitical than anything else.
The strong majority of those ’advisers’ were low ranking and retired military personnel living in luxury they could never dream at home.
Having lost Iran, the superpower failed miserably to break our determination or dislodge the ruling elite in Tehran. Not only did the US-backed eight-year Iraqi war not remove Iran from the global political map, it made the nation more determined in its struggle for self-reliance, honor and independence, and do more with less. It also opened the eyes of many nations and their leaders to what friendship with America is really worth.
Today few would disagree with the reality that Iran has more friends than it did in the early 1980s, and for this America should really be thanked.
By the same token, the number of nations and governments that have a deepening dislike for the superpower is visibly increasing, including in western societies, as Bush steadily becomes a nightmare for the people of America and the world.
Iran’s proximity with Muslim and Arab nations is more manifest for the reason that the Muslim-Arab region and millions of others in the free world are tired of the US lies and arrogance of its anti-intellectual leaders. The more American rulers bark at Iran and its declared foreign policies, the more will Iran’s magnetic attraction increase for the Muslim world plagued with despots who confuse loyalty with legitimacy.
So, a logical conclusion is that with the non-stop attacks and almost daily condemnation and obstruction from Bush’s America, successive governments in Tehran have worked against heavy odds and managed to deliver as best as they can. This does not mean that all those in high places here have done a wonderful job. To the contrary, many deserve to be shown the door for their flaws and failures as the nation moves forward slowly and prepares for the difficulties that lie ahead.