Opinion: Twenty-five years ago today
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J. Michael Kennedy, a foreign correspondent for The Times, took a close look at Tehran for the Sunday Opinion on April 18, 1982, in the second year of the Iran-Iraq War.
From the war front near the Iraqi border to the clogged streets of Tehran, Iran is a crazy quilt of contradictions. This country eludes definition, teetering back and forth between the past and the present. It fights a war with modern machinery, but counts as its best weapon the young men willing to clear mine fields by running through them. It desperately needs peace to salvage what is left of the economy, but instead vows to continue the campaign against enemies of Islam.
Kennedy highlighted the all too familiar clash between fundamentalists and moderates, particularly as it played out among and within recently repatriated youth.
The son of the revolution had a question. Until that moment, he had been doing his job, proselytizing for the Ministry of War Propaganda about Iran’s military superiority. But then Ali Shojanoori turned to face the back seat of the American-built station wagon. ‘Is it true that John Belushi is dead?’ he asked. ‘And what about Johnny Carson? Is he still on the air?’