Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East Read Free Page A

to scapegoat the United States for their troubles and label the coup as the precipitating factor for the calamitous socioeconomic and political situation in Iran. The allocation of blame on the United States accumulated almost exponentially during the 1960s and 1970s and ultimately manifested itself as a crucial aspect of the revolutionary platform, which led to the establishment of an Islamic republic in 1979 and the seizure of the American Embassy, with revolutionaries holding fifty-two Americans hostage for 444 days.
    The hostage crisis, which came after the United States admitted the exiled and ailing shah for medical treatment rather than return him to Iran for trial, led the American government to sever diplomatic ties with Iran. Since then, the relationship between the United States and the Iranian government has only grown worse and the Iranian government only less willing to grant visas to Americans.
     
     
     
    E ven though almost everyone I knew—experts and otherwise—told me I was wasting my time applying for a visa, I was determined. I applied four months earlier than I needed to, but after sixteen trips to the Iranian Embassy in London, it seemed that the net result of my diligent efforts would be little more than the further depletion of my rapidly dwindling scholarship stipend and unhealthy consumption of venti caramel macchiatos from Starbucks that I relied on as fuel to repeatedly make the two-hour trip.
    As it turned out, however, the repeated obstinacy of the Iranian government—and my willingness to be repeatedly rejected—ultimately worked to my advantage. Over the course of my many visits to the embassy, I had the opportunity to befriend one overworked official. After a few months of wooing him in broken Farsi, I was able to make him sympathetic to my situation. In December 2004, twelve hours before my flight to Iran, I was granted a visa to travel to the country that President Bush had less than two years earlier labeled as one of the three members of the “axis of evil.”
     
     
     
    W hen the plane took off for Tehran, the men on the plane were drinking alcohol and only one or two women were covered. I asked the man next to me if alcohol was legal in Iran. He looked at me, gave a small chuckle, and drank his Heineken. I slept through the rest of the flight, and when I woke up on the runway in Tehran, I felt like I was on a completely different plane. The alcohol was totally gone and every woman on the plane had covered her head with a hejab, as is the law in Iran. What struck me most was the total change in mood. The vibrant and jubilant crowd who had taken off in London now seemed subdued and regimented.
    As I walked off the plane and through customs, I was nervous. This was not the first time I had had border anxiety. But, unlike when I’d crossed the Congolese or Burundian borders, I wasn’t afraid of bodily harm. What terrified me was the uncertainty. The media had shaped my impression of Iran as a deeply religious, anti-American, and extremist society, and now I was prepared for the worst, and I had heard that foreign nationals with valid visas were sometimes turned away at immigration for no apparent reason.
    Tonight, however, there would be no such surprises. The woman behind the immigration counter was dressed in full chador and hejab and, in a stoic but friendly voice, welcomed me to Iran and stamped my passport. My first five minutes at Tehran Airport would turn out to be the only truly simple experience I had in Iran.
    I breezed through customs and collected my bags and exited the airport to get a taxi, but was greeted by a short and stocky elderly man holding a sign with my name on it. It wasn’t likely that there were many other Cohens passing through Tehran Airport at three in the morning, so I knew that the man was there for me. I was naturally a little bit suspicious, but at three A.M . and after a long flight from London, I was happy for a ride to my hotel and my escort