Word: tehran
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...been almost 19 years, but the images from Tehran are forever burned into the American psyche. The sudden assault on the U.S. embassy by Iranian students. The angry street mobs shouting "Death to America!" The parades of helpless, blindfolded hostages. Back home, outraged Americans could only imagine the horrors that the 52 prisoners faced during their 444 days of captivity...
...their soccer heroes scored a 2-1 triumph and thereby killed U.S. hopes in the World Cup, Iranians flooded into the streets and whooped and hooted until dawn. No "Death to America" this time. In fact, a few Cup-crazed fans raced their cars up and down Valiasr Street, Tehran's main drag, with the American flag fluttering out the window. One reveler even cried out, within earshot of the bearded morality police who kept a disapproving watch on the fun, "We love America...
...hallmark of Khatami's campaign for change is his very tentative effort to create a less hostile relationship with the American "Great Satan." Last January he called for cultural exchanges aimed at breaking down the "wall of mistrust" between Tehran and Washington. When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright finally delivered a full-blown response to Khatami two weeks ago, calling on Iran to explore further confidence-building steps and draw a road map to "normal relations," it was the most conciliatory tone on Iran to come out of Washington since Khomeini's revolutionaries held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days...
...reformist efforts. Conservative-controlled state radio immediately dismissed Albright's olive branch as nothing new, demanding that the U.S. apologize for a half-century of wrongs toward Iran. In a domestic power struggle that has intensified in the past month, the hard-liners have put the moderate mayor of Tehran on trial on corruption charges, ousted a key Khatami Cabinet minister and ordered the closure of a new liberal newspaper licensed under the President's pledge of greater press freedom. "What we are seeing," says Tehran University political scientist Nasser Hadian, "is a fight for the soul of Iran...
Maybe the most remarkable change is in the nation's official rhetoric, so memorably filled with anti-U.S. invective when Khomeini was alive. On the first anniversary of Khatami's election last month, tens of thousands of supporters crammed into an outdoor theater at Tehran University to hear a speech by the President. They cheered and stamped their feet, shouted, "Khatami, we love you!" and denounced the conservative mullahs in Qum as "Taliban," an insulting allusion to the ultra-fundamentalists governing neighboring Afghanistan. When a small section of hard-line students began yelling "Death to America!" the President reprimanded...