Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran by Moaveni Azadeh

Author:Moaveni, Azadeh [Moaveni, Azadeh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781588367778
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-02-02T23:00:00+00:00

Whereas in the West, weddings are often planned a year in advance, Iranian brides typically coordinate their receptions the month before. Desirable venues and photographers might be booked further ahead, but most of the party details—the flowers, the catering, the cake, the waiters—are decided on the cusp of the event. Each industry has its own reason for this. The florist, for example, said he could inform me about what imported flowers he had available only in the very week of the wedding. The bakery said the cake staff might lose track of the order if it came in too early. This last-minute approach frustrated me greatly, as I was reporting an important story that month and needed to get my bridal tasks out of the way.

For months, I had been discussing with my editors a profile of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader. We agreed it would be a great story, and I expected to take up the assignment after the wedding. But that spring, the United Nations Security Council was considering sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, the contested aspect of its nuclear program. The escalating clash between Iran and the West made the story especially timely. If the president’s powers were indeed constrained by the Islamic Republic’s legal structure, so that Ayatollah Khamenei was the man setting Iran’s course, then there was no better moment to profile his leadership. My editors had asked me to press ahead with my reporting, and I had agreed.

Khamenei was reclusive and notoriously difficult to write about. His office granted virtually no access to foreign journalists, and his closest advisers tended to shun the press as well, so I needed all my creativity and my best sources if I was to assemble original information. Khamenei hailed from Mashad, my father’s hometown, so I sought out relatives who knew his family. I spent many evenings with a family friend who worked closely with one of the ayatollah’s most senior, trusted advisers. In the end, what I learned confirmed the impression of Khamenei I had developed over the years. He had all the qualities of a political mullah—ascetic, suspicious of the West, and keen to preserve Iran’s austere revolutionary traditions. At the same time, his sensibilities were more modern than most clerics’; he hiked in jeans, read poetry, and played an Iranian string instrument. Those who knew him well considered him conservative to a fault and said he wished neither to reconcile with the West nor to court full-fledged confrontation. This was borne out by Khamenei’s record—he clearly believed in Iran’s right to nuclear power, but also sought to avoid punishments that could cripple Iran and shake the state’s hold on power. I wove this thesis into my story, which slowly took shape in the hours between calls to the florist and visits to the seamstress. I felt a lingering unease over not having contacted Mr. X, to brief him on my reporting for such a significant story. But I could not have disclosed what he would naturally have wanted to know.

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