Robert Dreyfuss in the Nation, from Tehran:
And then there was the Obama factor. Countless Iranians watched his June
4 Cairo speech, and its transcript was parsed word by word. By offering
to respect Iran rather than locating it in the "axis of evil," Obama
appealed to secular nationalists, activists seeking greater individual
freedom and businessmen hungering for an end to the sanctions strangling
Iran's economy. Nearly everyone I spoke with during the ten days I was
in Iran brought up Obama, whether I asked or not. At a frenzied Moussavi
rally in the city of Karaj, west of the capital, I met a campaign
organizer, Hojatolislam Akbar Hamidi, 48, a distinguished cleric who's
known Moussavi for more than twenty years. "I listened to Obama's
speech, and it made me very happy," he told me. "But we're afraid that
some Iranian authorities do not understand the positive message of
Obama." In interviews at polling places on election day, dozens of
voters praised Obama's opening to Iran. At a Tehran mosque where
hundreds of people were lined up to vote, several dozen crowded around
as I asked an older woman why she supported Moussavi. When I suggested,
"Perhaps Moussavi and Obama might meet someday soon?" the crowd,
translating for one another, erupted in cheers, laughter and thumbs-up
signs.
More prosaically, many plugged-in Iranians told me that nearly the
entirety of Iran's business class is fed up with Ahmadinejad's bellicose
rhetoric, and they want to put an end to sanctions.
