Bahman Doustı

Reformist clerics want to save the Shiite tradition of Martyr Imam Hussein by secularizing the Iranian politics. Their method and slogan is simple; In order to save the religion "Give faith, power, and nation's wealth to the people"!

Has the Shiite clergy in Iran sunk so deep in its worldly greed not to abandon a regime which, like Saddam and the Taliban, is ready to force its people to pay such a high price? Their role in this year's Ashoura ceremonies will give us a clue to the next year's changes in the Iranian political scene.

The true will of the majority of Iranians is freedom of speech and free elections. Western countries are, too, free to choose solidarity the will of the Iranians, genuine elections; in exchange for "global advancement of modern capitalism" in the Middle East. The question is: who are those, in West, who want to escape from this freedom of choice? And why?

In the last three decades the blame has always been put on the “Great Satan” (West and the US) at every Friday Prayer show. During last week’s prayer, however, the anti-regime crowd shouted “Down with Russia, down with China!” whenever the “official slogan man” prompted the crowd to shout as usual.

Contemporary Iranian society is full of contradictions. The oppressed people of Iran seem to have no other way out of the religious oppression by the Islamic regime than praying to God!

Any horse-trading between conservative governments of US/EU and local anti-democratic governments of the region will be immediately revealed as a disappointment for Iranians and world public opinion. Then it will certainly backfire.

Iran's adjustment to the outside world will not necessarily be a difficult, but a multi-dimensional effort in which global community, too, has to adjust itself to the Iranian demands. Or rather to the demands of the Iranians. These demands are clearly expressed in the recent self-steamed popular uprising of June 2009 with free elections as the main slogan.