Listless, Shabby Capital : In Tehran, War Takes Spiritual, Physical Toll

TEHRAN — Rifle-toting Revolutionary Guards still man the lookout towers erected around the former U.S. Embassy compound here, where American diplomats were taken captive and eventually held for 444 days.

Now the rifle-bearers guard only themselves--the compound is their mid-capital base--and nobody pays much attention to them.

Nor is the graffiti painted on the fading whitewash over the brown brick wall calculated to generate much fervor.

“We Will Make America Face a Severe Defeat,” reads one slogan.

“The Superpowers’ Right of Veto Is Worse Than the Law of the Jungle,” reads another.

Tame by 1979 Standards

Hardly strong stuff by the revolutionary standards of that moment in late 1979 when the U.S. Embassy staff was taken hostage and held despite worldwide protests.

And after a funeral service for the 290 victims of the civilian Iran Air Airbus shot down July 9 by a U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf, protesters outside Parliament here were reduced to chanting: “Reagan is not a president, he’s an actor!”

All of this suggests that much of the revolutionary steam has gone out of this capital. The city, whose population has soared to more than 7 million, seems curiously listless after nearly eight years of war with Iraq.

“Everyone is weary,” said one businessman. “People are tired of the war and of the situation where everything is expensive and hard to get.”

The war--in addition to grinding away the lives of an estimated 500,000 Iranian troops--has brought civilian casualties to the capital by way of long-range Iraqi missile attacks.

“You never know when or where they are going to hit,” one resident said. “North, south, east--when one lands, it makes a terrific explosion and blows up a half-dozen houses.”

Sandbags have been stacked outside banks, concrete shelters stand at main intersections, evacuation signs--showing a family of three with an arrow pointing the way--have been put up and windows are taped to prevent flying glass.

To fire up the faithful, the mullahs--Islamic religious leaders--call for volunteers to hold the barricades against the hated Iraqis. But there are fewer and fewer who step forward.

The young are more likely to seek to avoid military service than to race for the fighting front, observers here say.

The general torpor is reflected by the relative few who turn up for militant prayer services and demonstrations in the capital.

Even the chaotic traffic seems thinner than it used to be. While Tehran drivers are as reckless as ever, motorists can now cross town without encountering a single gridlock.

At its best never an attractive city--one wag called Tehran “Ankara without the charm”--the capital has become shabby, dusty and dull.

Cinemas show mostly propaganda films. Under Islamic regulations, alcohol and nightclubs are banned, and the restaurants are few, the cuisine plain.

Frequent Power Failures

Even once-fancy hotels like the Inter-Continental--now called Lale (tulip)--are grim: badly maintained, with dirty carpets, indifferent service and frequent power failures.

Sometimes, Iranian caviar is available, but it must be washed down with a cola beverage or a foul-tasting drink of uncertain lineage dubbed “Islamic beer.”

Women do not dare appear on the street with makeup, and they wear a full black chador to the ankles over their black dresses and stockings. On imported packages of panty hose, the pictures of a woman’s leg have been painted over in dark ink.

Only young girls are exempt from wearing the chador. Yet one mullah was seen leaving Friday services with his 4- or 5-year-old daughter wearing a black veil to her shoulders as he helped her into his chauffeur-driven Mercedes.

Young men affect a three-day stubble; the mullahs all wear beards except, surprisingly, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Speaker of Parliament and political strongman, whose pink chin and cheeks seem to glow as he speaks. Rafsanjani’s religious rank is just below that of an ayatollah.

For most, life is hard. The average city worker makes between 40,000 and 50,000 rials a month, or between $570 and $715 at the official exchange rate.

Second Jobs

“I don’t know how they make ends meet,” a Western diplomat commented. “Many heads of families have to get a second job like driving a taxi or get financial help from relatives.”

A driver said that an automobile tire costs about 20,000 rials, or about half a month’s salary--five times what it cost before the 1979 revolution that ousted the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and brought Islamic militants to power.

Other prices have soared, and inflation is running at more than 100% annually on the most desired consumer items: cars, household goods, better cuts of meat.

With inflation, maintaining foreign exchange reserves in hard currencies has been a problem for the government.

Pay With Dollars

Last year, the government decreed that travel-crazy Iranians would have to pay for international flights with dollars instead of rials.

This produced a public outcry fully reported on television, with many pointedly complaining that it was ironic indeed that loyal Islamic citizens had to pay the national airline in dollars printed by the United States, or “the Great Satan.”

After three months, an embarrassed government rescinded the order.

At one point, television cameras were brought into Parliament to show the legislators in action, creating Islamic-style democracy. But the government soon changed its mind when one outspoken member of Parliament, in front of the cameras, demanded of Speaker Rafsanjani: “Why is it that you call for young men to volunteer for military service in the war when your own son is living in Geneva?”

Iranians were shocked by the destruction of the jetliner by an American cruiser, but they still seem to be ignorant of the devastating and lasting anti-Iranian opinion engendered among Americans by the holding of the embassy hostages.

“They tend to blame everyone but themselves for their misfortunes,” said one Western analyst here. “And they used to seem to enjoy painting themselves into a corner--Iran against the world.”

As if to underscore this, the walls outside the headquarters of Tehran Radio are painted with the flags of five nations, with the “appropriate” slogan under each:

“Death to the United States.”

“Death to the Russia.”

“Death to the Israel.”

“Death to the England.”

“Death to the France.”

Awkward for Americans

In Tehran and elsewhere in Iran there are American women undergoing a very difficult time--those married to Iranian men.

As one knowledgeable resident explained the situation:

“Many of these women married in the United States when their Iranian husbands were going to American universities. When they returned here--often with young children--they found that under the restrictive new regime, their husbands reverted to traditional Middle Eastern forms, where women and children were definitely subservient.

“In some cases, wives and children have been systematically beaten, and since the children are Iranian, the government says it can take no action--it cannot interfere with family discipline.

“The wives--some who have seen their children spirited away from the United States--cannot get their children out of the country, and many of them are trying to leave. It’s very pathetic.”

In Tehran, some organizations seem to be run efficiently--the Oil Ministry and Iran Air, for instance. But the place remains a strange mixture of expertise and inefficiency.

Some Professionalism

Americans are often surprised, for example, by the professionalism that many military officers display--particularly those of the navy and air force.

These officers recently presented a strong analytical case to counter the Pentagon’s version of the attack on the Airbus and the events leading up to it.

But even this technical savvy can suddenly dissipate.

A few days ago, some Western journalists in the port of Bandar Abbas were put aboard an air force C-130 for a flight to Tehran. Also aboard were the makeshift wooden coffins of 72 of the Airbus victims, being sent to the capital for the national funeral service.

As the plane accelerated down the runway, the coffins began to slip from their insecurely fixed holding straps and clatter toward the rear of the plane.

The shifting weight placed the aircraft in jeopardy. The pilot managed to abort the takeoff as the coffins, some now open, banged forward again inside the cabin.

The load master disappeared as the journalists demanded to be let off the aircraft to find another way to Tehran. The sympathetic navigator of the plane smiled ruefully.

To the departing Westerners he said: “Have a good flight and pray for us.”