Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [139]
Amir cleared the ashes from his suit and then gave me a stare. “There you have it,” he told me curtly. “You’ve asked me about my regrets several times in the past, and I always avoided answering you. But I owe it to you now. I owe it to Maziar Bahari, who has suffered by the regime I helped bring to power. If you really want to know, my life is nothing but regrets these days. Nothing but regrets.”
Amir got up and, uncharacteristically, went up to his room without saying good-bye.
Security agents stopped Amir at the airport when he returned to Iran. They took his passport and interrogated him for three days. He is still banned from leaving the country and awaits a trial.
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These days, I spend at least an hour a day talking to my friends and sources in Iran. Our conversations about the latest outrage committed by the regime and what may happen next are what I call “Liza Minnelli dialogues”: we cry, we laugh, we cry while laughing, and laugh again teary-eyed. And then, we all look really confused.
No one can be certain of what the future holds for Iran. Anyone who tells you what will happen next is either delusional or a scam artist, trying to make a buck through political clairvoyance.
The brutality of Khamenei and the Guards after the disputed election has created an uncertain situation. On the one hand, dissent is growing and people are becoming more disenchanted with the regime every day. On the other, three decades of revolution, war, and violence have made most Iranians mistrustful of any sudden violent changes.
It is too optimistic to think that the relatively peaceful changes in Egypt can be emulated in Iran. Egyptians rose up against a corrupt dictator with no legitimacy whatsoever. Khamenei is still regarded by his followers as Allah’s representative on earth. Also unlike Mubarak, Khamenei has been very careful about his image, especially about financial corruption in his family, an issue that is very sensitive for Iranians. This has granted him an aura of sainthood that has created a cult around him. The majority of Iranians are unhappy with Khamenei’s tyranny and the misery that has befallen them as a result of his despotic policies, but assassins around him are still willing to kill and die for their agha (master).
Iran’s future depends on a host of domestic and foreign players: Khamenei, the Guards, the economy, the price of oil, the United States, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries in the region will all play important roles. Most critically, what will happen in Iran will depend on the zeitgeist of the Iranian people at a given point, and that has historically been very difficult to predict.
Extrapolating from my conversations with friends and sources inside Iran and a daily study of the country’s politics, economy, and, most important of all, culture, I constantly shift between two future scenarios. The first is a depressing prospect in which violent clashes continue to erupt between the regime and those who oppose it, and Iran is simultaneously attacked by the United States and its allies. In the other, much more positive scenario, the people of Iran, with the help of the international community, somehow peacefully transform the current regime into a relatively democratic government.
The regime has managed to remain in power through violence. The opposition knows that Khamenei and his cronies are willing to go to any length to stay in power, and they have asked people not to resort to violence. Yet the regime itself resorts to more violence every day. The number of executions has multiplied since the 2009 presidential election, and many people have been thrown in jail for writing an article or giving an interview. The people,