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[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Los Angeles Times....

Iran marks 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover with
‘Down With America’ signs — and a missile

By RAMIN MOSTAGHIM and SHASHANK BENGALI | 7:55AM PDT - Saturday, November 04, 2017


Iranians chant and march during observance of the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
 — Vahid Salemi/Associated Press.

IRAN on Saturday held the heavily choreographed pageant of anti-Americanism that marks the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran amid worsening relations with the Trump administration and uncertainty about the fate of its nuclear agreement with world powers.

This year's anniversary was commemorated under cloudy, polluted skies in Tehran, where elderly enthusiasts of Iran's theocracy took to the streets despite air quality that made it difficult for many to take deep breaths.

Thousands gathered on the campus of the former U.S. Embassy, dubbed a “den of espionage,” where a ballistic missile was displayed. News agencies described it as a Sejil surface-to-surface missile with a range of 1,200 miles.

Iran has paraded its missile capability in recent months in a show of defiance to President Trump, whose administration has said Tehran's development of ballistic missiles violates the spirit of the nuclear agreement it signed in 2015.

Last month, Trump declined to certify Iran's compliance with the agreement — under which Iran curbed uranium enrichment in exchange for relief from international sanctions. Trump's decision did not undo the agreement, which European countries and Iran continue to support, but allows Congress to decide whether to reimpose certain sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Hundreds of Iranian militant students took 52 Americans hostage at the embassy for 444 days to protest Washington's refusal to hand over the Western-backed shah, who was deposed in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Placards reminded of U.S.-supported coups in Latin American and Asian countries.

The commemorations took place under tight security managed by Iranian police and the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iranians who gathered at the embassy echoed the defiant words of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who this week called the United States Iran's “No.1 enemy.”

Hasan Shorjeh, a retired 65-year-old teacher carrying a “Down with America” placard, said there was no point in respecting the nuclear deal if the United States didn't hold up its end of the agreement.

“As the supreme leader said, American administrations have always been cunning and hostile, so I don't see any solution for the disputes,” Shorjeh said. “The enmity with America will continue and our resistance will as well. I don't see any solution in my child's lifetime, let alone mine.”

Roghaye Riyahi, a 35-year-old woman wearing a black chador, said she had come to the embassy to mark the takeover for the past 20 years.

“I think that even if I live 120 years, the enmity with America will not be buried — at least not as long as America doesn’t change its hostile policy toward Iran,” Riyahi said. “In fact, today, Trump the madman has contributed to our celebration of the takeover and more people have taken part — gloriously and wholeheartedly.”

But beyond the stage-managed celebrations, some Iranians expressed hope for better relations with the United States and opposition to the orchestrated anti-American protests.

“I wish the hostility between the two countries would end as soon as possible because we are suffering from it,” said Hasan Mahmoudi, a 50-year-old shopkeeper near the embassy. “We want to have normal relations with America and foreign investment here to create jobs for our educated youth.”

• Special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Los Angeles Times staff writer Shashank Bengali from Mumbai, India.

• Ramin Mostaghim has been the Los Angeles Times' Tehran-based special correspondent since early 2007. He has worked as a journalist, producer and translator for Iranian and Western media for three decades. Since joining the L.A. Times, he has covered Iran's capture and release of British sailors in 2007, the parliamentary elections of 2008, the disputed presidential election of 2009 and its violent aftermath. He graduated with a degree in zoology from Razi University in Kermanshah and maintains strong personal connections to Iran's Kurdish western provinces and northern Caspian Sea region.

• Shashank Bengali is the Los Angeles Times' South Asia correspondent, covering a stretch of countries from Iran to Myanmar. He joined the L.A. Times in 2012 as a national security reporter in the Washington bureau. He has reported from more than 50 countries since beginning his career with McClatchy Newspapers, where he served as a foreign correspondent in Africa and the Middle East. In 2016, he shared in the Pulitzer Prize awarded to the Los Angeles Times staff for coverage of the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Originally from Cerritos, California, Shashank holds degrees in journalism and French from USC and a master's in public policy from Harvard. He lives with his wife in Mumbai, India.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iran-embassy-anniversary-20171104-story.html