The “axis of evil” has no relevance for me when I think of Iran, a country I’ve found to have a human, loving, hospitable face throughout 40 years of encounters. I lived in Iran between 1968 and 1978, and started returning again, this time with peace delegations, in 2005. It is one of the great joys of my life to see the layers of misunderstanding and fear gradually fall away from those who visit Iran today for the first time.

One delegate recently said, “I met a mullah on the street and he was so sweet! Who would think of a mullah being sweet?” Another delegate, well-traveled in the Middle East, said, “Iranians are the most hospitable people I have ever met.”

A Jewish delegate said he had been told to be careful: “They might shoot you if they find out you’re Jewish.” He was amazed to see Jews worshiping openly and walking down a street in Tehran wearing their yarmulkes. He wasn’t shot, but was mobbed by the worshipers at a synagogue who were delighted to find a Jew among us.

The younger people on our delegations have been surprised to see the variety of fashions on the street, as well as learn that young Iranians find ways to meet and to date. The artists in our delegation were thrilled to see the throngs of Iranians gathered at the tombs of the famous poets, Hafez and Sa’adi, and we witnessed Iran’s great love for music. In Isfahan, one young man with a shopping bag stopped to sing a love song below a pedestrian bridge. He sang as though the mournful and exquisite song was not performance but just a normal part of everyday life.

These images contrasted vividly with the Western media’s portrayals of Iran, often showing only a sea of black and waving fists.

When Iranians learn that we are from the United States, the consistent response is: “We really like American people, we just don’t like your government.” This is usually followed by the question, “Why does Bush want to bomb us?” Some ask why there are sanctions against Iran, and why the United States wants to change their government. “If there’s to be any change,” they say, “we want to do it ourselves.”

We also know that life in Iran can be difficult, especially in the political sphere. Reform candidates are often vetoed before the elections, and still there are hundreds of candidates who run for a very few slots. The parliamentary elections were looming when we went. Some people said they would not bother to vote; one woman said she would rely on her studious father for his own analysis of the candidates. The official religious minorities (Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians), on the other hand, were proud to tell us they have their own representatives in the Majlis, the Iranian parliament.

A few days before the election, we met with former President Khatami, and it was easy to sense his continued commitment to the reform movement, as well as his deep disappointment that he had been unable to do more during his term in office. He said that peace is what’s most needed in the world today, yet it is rare to find in international relations. He noted that war has been glorified in our cultures and histories, by everyone from Homer to the revered Persian poet, Ferdowsi.

Iranians have a deep and persistent memory of history: they remember the 1953 coup and removal of Prime Minister Mossadegh by the CIA, while Americans recall the photos of the U.S. embassy officials in blindfolds. We have two distinct historical memories and have not had diplomatic relations for 30 years, leaving no opportunity to get reacquainted and work towards reconciliation.

Iran is not perfect, and there continue to be human rights abuses and curtailment of freedom of speech. But based on my experiences, I believe there is absolutely no justification or rational cause for military intervention or sanctions against Iran. External efforts toward “regime change” are counterproductive for building trust and for reform.

I believe that Iran is ready to enter diplomatic negotiations, on the condition that all parties be respectful and sincere in their efforts to bring about reconciliation and thus start building a more peaceful world.

Ellen Francis is an Episcopal priest and sister of the Order of St. Helena. She lived in Iran in the 1960s and 1970s and since 2005 has co-led several delegations to Iran sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

The possibility of a United States or Israeli war to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been an obsession among foreign policy wonks, diplomats and journalists for some time.

Many Iran experts believe such a war would be a disaster that would fail to halt Iran’s nuclear program. Michael Axworthy (pictured) is one of them.

During the 1970s, the British author and former diplomat traveled to Iran many times while his parents lived and worked there. He joined the British foreign service in 1986, serving as a head of the Iran desk from 1998 to 2000.

Over the last eight years he’s been writing books and teaching about Iran in the United Kingdom. His latest book, “A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind,” was released last month. It traces the country’s history from its earliest days,
emphasizing its religious, intellectual and cultural traditions.

Axworthy graciously agreed to an e-mail interview about Iran and its current confrontation with the West. “The crisis is a result of the hostility that has persisted between the U.S. and Iran since the revolution of 1979 and the hostage crisis.

“But it has its roots in the U.S.-Iran relationship earlier than that, notably in U.S. support for the regime of the Shah in the 1960s and 1970s, and the coup attempted by the British and the CIA against Prime Minister Mossadeq in 1953. The prime reason the clerical regime in Iran might want a nuclear weapon is as a deterrent to the U.S. regime-change policy.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Is the U.S. going to launch a war against Iran?

MICHAEL AXWORTHY: I believe the costs to the U.S. of military action are too high, and that there have been at least two effective rebellions against that idea within the U.S. system already — the most recent being the National Intelligence Report report last November, in which the U.S. intelligence community declared that Iran had not been pursuing a nuclear weapon program since 2003.

But if the U.S. and the wider international community are unable to stop the Iranian program (whether by warlike or peaceful means) then Israel could take action unilaterally.

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LAT: What are some potential consequences of a war meant to target Iran’s nuclear installations?

AXWORTHY: Iran would have a range of retaliatory options, include attacks on U.S. installations on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf, and attacks against Israel. The situation in Iraq and Afghanistan could also change for the worse.

LAT: Could a war halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions?

AXWORTHY: Military action could not destroy an Iranian nuclear weapon program. The program could easily be dispersed to widely separated, secret locations, that could not be seen from the air, and repositioned deep underground, so deep that even nuclear weapons might not destroy them even if their locations could be hit.

Even if damage were done, once the applied knowledge of how to enrich uranium has been acquired, it is impossible to prevent the activity going ahead, if the will to do so is there. Military action against Iran is more likely to persuade ordinary Iranians of the need for a nuclear deterrent than anything else.

LAT: Do you think Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons?

AXWORTHY: Important Iranian religious leaders have declared that nuclear weapons, and all weapons of mass destruction, are immoral and unacceptable, and this matters. We should take those statements seriously (not least because, during the Iran/Iraq war, Iran refrained from retaliating with chemical weapons when Saddam Hussein used those weapons against Iranian troops, and against civilians. Many Iranian veterans are still suffering the after-effects of those weapons).

The NIE concluded last November that Iran had not been pursuing a nuclear weapon program since 2003. But western governments have good reason to believe that at various points they have pursued a nuclear weapon program. The explanation for this apparent contradiction could be that the Iranian leadership has wanted to develop a capability, short of an actual weapon, that would still serve as a deterrent. In other words, to have all the elements ready to produce a weapon if necessary, but not the weapon itself. The only practical value of nuclear weapons is as a deterrent, as is well known.

LAT: How can the West curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions without going to war?

AXWORTHY: Only by negotiation — direct, committed negotiation between the U.S. and Iran at an appropriately high political level, directed at a resolution of all outstanding disputes between Iran and the U.S.
LAT: What effects are sanctions currently having on Iran? Are they working?

AXWORTHY: Sanctions are having an effect on the Iranian economy, contributing to the high inflation and high unemployment that make miserable the lives of many Iranians (factors that were significant in 2005 in the election of Ahmadinejad). But sanctions are a blunt instrument, and whether they are working to produce the effects on Iranian government policy that the West hopes for is more uncertain.

The statement by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on June 3, restating Iran’s commitment to its nuclear program and saying that Iran seeks only civil nuclear power and not a nuclear weapon, would seem to suggest otherwise. This policy has broad support within Iran, irrespective of other political divisions.

LAT: What would it take to get Iran to stop supporting militant groups in Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and possibly Iraq?

AXWORTHY: A ‘Grand Bargain’ of the kind proposed by the Iranian government (and ignored by the U.S. government) in 2003. The proposal suggested talks toward a resolution of the nuclear dispute, and de facto Iranian recognition of Israel, in return for an end to the U.S. policy for regime change in Iran, and a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Iran. Note that 2003 is also the date at which the NIE concluded that work on the Iranian nuclear program stopped. Although Ahmadinejad came to power after that, his significance is often exaggerated (not least by himself) and the other elements in the leadership group are much the same as they were in 2003.

Incidentally, I would applaud the reports … showing that the picture of support from Iran for insurgent action against coalition troops in Iraq has been greatly exaggerated on the strength of very little evidence; and that the much greater destabilizing effect of action by foreign fighters and suicide bombers on the Sunni side, especially from Saudi Arabia but also from other countries in the region, has been scandalously neglected.

LAT: How would you describe the state of Iranian society today?
AXWORTHY: That is a big question, and the Iranian people have a way of surprising pundits. I have mentioned the problems of inflation and unemployment already — there is also a serious drug problem, as a result of Iran’s position on the drug highway from Afghanistan to Europe.

There seem in addition to be a number of trends at work — away from religion and toward nationalism in politics, though there is also a mood of disillusionment and nihilism among many young people after the failure of the reform project under the Khatami presidency of 1997-2005.

A more optimistic feature is the growing role of Iranian women in education and the job market — 65% of university entrants are women, and many of them go on to well-paid jobs, often earning more than their husbands.
LAT: What are the chances that Iranians themselves will bring about a change of Iran’s policies

AXWORTHY: The ruling clique have become more adept at manipulating the electoral system, and it is hard to be too optimistic. But there is still genuine politics in Iran, and significant differences within the political class.

For example, the Majlis is now strongly conservative, but it has successfully resisted appointments and policies proposed by President Ahmadinejad at a number of important points. A range of judicious observers, from Paul Wolfowitz to the son of the last Shah, from the dissident Akbar Ganji to the Nobel prizewinner Shirin Ebadi, have urged against military action, in favor of allowing Iranians to develop freer, more representative government themselves, without outside interference.

Borzou Daragahi, in Beirut

LONDON — After a seven-year legal battle, Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled
Wednesday that the British government was wrong to include an Iranian
resistance group, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, on its list of banned
terrorist groups. Lord Corbett, left front, urged celebrating People’s Mujahedeen backers to
sit down Wednesday.

Spokesmen for the group, whose name means People’s Holy Warriors, said the
ruling appeared to leave Britain’s interior minister, Home Secretary Jacqui
Smith, with no further legal recourse but to order Parliament to strike the
group from a list of more than 20 proscribed terrorist organizations under
Britain’s Terrorism Act.

The court’s ruling denied the government’s bid to carry the appeal further,
seemingly closing off recourse to Britain’s supreme appellate body, the
so-called Law Lords. But the British government did not say what it planned
to do.

The People’s Mujahedeen has roots that go back to the Iranian resistance to
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s rule in the mid-1960s. After the 1979
revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini turned against the group, executing
many of its members and driving others into exile. It regrouped in Iraq in
the 1980s and was listed as a terrorist group by the United States in 1997
and the European Union in 2002.

In 2002 the People’s Mujahedeen provided intelligence on Iran’s secret
efforts to enrich uranium that led to United Nations sanctions against Iran
and a confrontation with the West that continues today. But the group also
has a record of unverifiable or erroneous claims.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the verdict as a “political ruling
that lacks legal basis.”

“Senior British authorities must explain the reason behind this ruling,” a
ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said in a statement faxed to news
organizations. He referred to the group’s armed attacks on Iranian officials
and said the ruling “would only propagate terrorism and violence.”

Amid jubilant celebrations by the Iranian group’s supporters in London,
Paris and Iraq, where 3,800 members have lived since 2003 under American
military guard at a vast desert encampment outside Baghdad, the group said
it would seek to overturn a similar proscription as a terrorist group by the
27 nations of the European Union. Spokesmen for the group said that there
was no further justification for the European ban, because it was imposed on
the basis of the 2001 British finding against the group.

A three-judge panel led by Nicholas Phillips, Britain’s lord chief justice,
said in a written ruling that there was “no reasonable prospect of success”
for the home secretary in proceeding with the government’s appeal of a
November 2007 finding by the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission, a
quasi-judicial body that rules on appeals by banned groups.

In effect, the appeals court upheld the claims by lawyers for the group that
it had complied with its own renunciation of violence in 2000, when it
announced that it would no longer carry out terrorist attacks and would
concentrate on peaceful opposition to the government in Tehran.

“The only conclusion that a reasonable decision maker could reach,” the
court said, was that since American forces disarmed the People’s Mujahedeen
and allied groups in Iraq in 2003, the group “has not taken any steps to
acquire or seek to acquire further weapons or to restore any military
capability in Iraq.”

The People’s Mujahedeen, the judges said, “has not sought to recruit
personnel for military-type or violent activities,” nor engaged in
“military-type training of its existing members” or sought to support other
groups in attacks on Iranian targets.

“To the extent that the P.M.O.I. has retained networks and supporters inside
Iran since, at the latest, 2002,” the judges said, using the abbreviation
for the group’s full name, “they have been directed to social protest,
finance and intelligence gathering activities which would not fall within
the definition of ‘terrorism’ for the purposes of the 2000 Act.”

The People’s Mujahedeen is also on the United States’ list of banned terror
groups, and Bush administration officials have said in the past that they
have no plans to lift the ban. But if Britain and the Europe Union lift
their bans, the group would be able to use its legalization as a basis for
raising money and organizing resistance to the ruling ayatollahs in Iran.

Spokesmen for the People’s Mujahedeen in London and Paris demanded after
Wednesday’s ruling that the British authorities, and the European Council of
Ministers, act promptly to remove the “terrorist label” from the group,
allowing it to resume normal activities. The group says it is committed to
restoring democracy in Iran and opposes any attempt by Iran to acquire
nuclear weapons.