New in paper

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: The best kisser I ever met knocked me off balance. My little joke was, “That’s why we have to go home now and lie down in a hurry!” We’ve been seeing each other for almost six months. This man can convince me to do almost anything — so much fun!

But, now he’s been transferred out of province for bigger money at a new company.

He’s leaving soon and he could have asked me to move with him, as his trucking partner, but he didn’t! Other women will soon have their hands on him, believe me!

I’m already 27 and I don’t want to date any more guys — just him. Now what can I do? I feel sadder every day.

Iran is a state run by a radical government victimizing its citizens and its neighbours. How do we change that? Any regime change that repeats the mistakes of the past is not a solution.

What went wrong in the past which led to the current regime? One answer is the U.K. and American aided coup which led to the ouster in 1953 of a democratically elected government headed at the time by Mohammad Mossadegh and its replacement with an American friendly autocrat, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The Shah imposed his rule through the Iranian National Intelligence and Security Organization — SAVAK, the acronym of its Persian name. SAVAK systematically inflicted torture, arbitrary killings and extra-judicial killings on perceived opponents of the regime. It was only a matter of time before repression of a regime directed to serving foreign interests would be overthrown.

What replaced the regime of the Shah, in 1979, the current regime of the mullahs, is a regime as intolerant and violent as the regime of the Shah and then some. That was not inevitable. But neither was it surprising. The vicious nature of the current regime, following the example set by the Shah, and its hatred for the United States, reacting to the U.S. aided imposition of the Shah, both echoes and reacts to the past. In 1979, the U.S. reaped what it sowed in 1953.