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Bringing Iran On Board
Friday, November 2, 2001
The Christian Science Monitor

What can the U.S. give Iran for cooperating, especially when the U.S. sees Iran as a supporter of terrorism against Israel?

Young Iranians just want to have fun. Unfortunately, most of the time, they can't.

So when Iran's soccer team wins a big international game, young people take to the streets by the hundreds of thousands and celebrate to near-riot. That's what they did on Wednesday -- the third time since Oct. 12.

Unfortunately, such bubbling dissent in Iran's 22-year-old theocracy -- where well over half the population is under 25 -- just might influence whether the US can win the support of Iran's ruling clerics in creating a nonTaliban government in neighboring Afghanistan after the war.

Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is so nervous over the youthful dissent that -- while lashing out at the US -- he's ordered satellite TV dishes to be confiscated.
(More: CSMonitor.com News Source)
2001 © The Christian Science Monitor.

Dan