Celebrating... mullah-style

By Gamal Salama Ali

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Iran celebrated its 30 years since the Islamic Revolution in spectacular fashion. It launched an Iranian-made satellite into space using an Iranian-made rocket. Not just a scientific success, the launch was a slap in the face of the Western world that has been trying to keep Iran down with all sorts of sanctions.

Since the revolution, Iran has been maligned and blockaded, despised and insulted, dismissed as an anomaly, and denounced as a rogue state. And yet it continues to flourish in unexpected ways. One cannot help but be impressed by such vitality from a country that abandoned its past so radically and yet managed to survive in the face of hostility and thrive against the odds. Iran is still faithful to the tenets of the revolution, but its democracy is fairly credible, and its society is quite adept at debate.

The Iranians must be feeling good right now. With Obama in power, they'll be able to engage in talks with America at long last. But what is to come out of the dialogue? Some say that differences between the two countries are too wide to bridge. Others say that the two can, with some effort, meet halfway.

It all remains to be seen. But Iran has nothing to lose really. If the dialogue was successful, then Iran would once again be accepted as just another ambitious and successful regional power. If it fails, Tehran will have gained some more time to hone its technology and make progress on its nuclear programme. Iran is playing hardball because it doesn't want to be trampled underfoot. For a country that reinvented itself only three decades ago, this is no mean accomplishment.

This week's Soapbox speaker is chairman of the Political Science Department at the Suez Canal University.