Iran: the dust settles, but not in a good way

Iran is a very polluted place at the best of times; Tehran and other big cities, particularly, are full of vehicle fumes. Tehran sits in a sort of bowl surrounded by mountains. In the summer no wind comes to take the fumes away and it is common to see people walking around wearing masks.

Right now, however, Iran is choking under a new cloud - of dust, blown from Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The storm affected US Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Iraq last week. There are some dramatic pictures of it here from an 'embedded reporter' in Iraq.

The dust-storm has served as a convenient excuse for the Iranian government to shut government offices and universities. Tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of a major student uprising in 1999, when students at Tehran University, emboldened under the regime of the 'reformist' president Khatami, demonstrated against the closure of a reformist newspaper. Their dormitories were attacked and one student killed. Protests followed throughout the country, and in the crackdown more people were killed and hundreds of student activists arrested. Some of those are still in prison.

President Khatami's response, denouncing the protests, led to great disillusionment among many young people about the possibility that the 'reformists' could deliver real change in Iran, and earned the response 'marg bar Khatami!' - 'death to Khatami!' - from some.

There have been student protests on previous anniversaries of "18 Tir" (18th day of the month of Tir = 9th July). Who knows what will be possible this year, but it is a date on many people's minds.

The great and the bad: Ayatollah Khomeini

In 2004 I was lucky enough to visit Iran as the guest of a family friend. One day another friend picked me up to drive me to Behesht Zahra, the large cemetery south of Tehran which has many graves of soldiers killed in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. There are more cheerful days out to be had in and around Tehran! But I also wanted to visit the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini which is nearby. Again, there are more cheerful days out to be had in and around Tehran! But I do like my history and don't believe in just going to see the pretty sights (of which Iran has many) when I visit a country.

On the drive south, along the dusty highway out of Tehran, my travel companion asked me: 'What do you think of Ayatollah Khomeini?'

This question floored me. I mean, I'm a woman from the West, wasn't it absolutely obvious what I would think of him? To my companion clearly it wasn't. This set me thinking, and I found an answer that had to acknowledge the factor that had made it possible for him to ask such a question.

'Well, Khomeini was a very strong and important figure.'

'Yes, he was,' my companion agreed, and we left it there.

P.S. A friend has suggested I am wasting my time raking over the coals to write a blogpost about the top 10 crimes of Thatcher. Of course, I had been going to follow this up with a top 10 crimes of Blair, which would be identical, only omitting points 1, 5 and 8, and replacing Tony Blair at no. 10 with Gordon Brown.

However, I do regret setting myself such a gruelling publishing schedule and have decided to spare you the turgid details of points 2-10, and end the series here. We all have other, fresher, fish to fry.