Four excerpts from the Iranian press-on elections and democracy and on religious intolerance and intellectual pluralism-suggest the extent to which democratic thinking has gained a foothold in Iran.
The uneasy accommodation of competing visions of authority that has characterized Iran’s political system since 1979 is a familiar phenomenon in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The Islamic Republic is in a volatile, even prerevolutionary situation, hammered by foreign opposition and sanctions from the outside, and the disillusionment and discontent of its own people from within.…
