Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 sent reverberations all the way to my hometown in the American Midwest. At school we anxiously counted the days of the U.S. embassy hostage crisis, and one day the daughter of Iranian exiles appeared in my fourth-grade class.
Twenty-eight years later I traveled to Tehran as the only foreign reporter in Vladimir Putin’s pool. While the members of the security forces I encountered during my visit displayed nothing but hostility, the ordinary Iranians I met were lavishly hospitable and hopeful for change. No country I have visited has so impressed me with its sense of historical purpose – and stunted potential.