Death to America!

"'Death to America' is not a verse in the holy book of Koran and there is no logic in chanting it forever. Just like the slogan of 'Death to Soviet Union' that we used to chant in the old days, this chant of 'Death to the U.S.' can be removed from our political gatherings."
Isfahan senior cleric Sheik Mohammad Taghi Rahbar

"As long as there is American evil in the world, this slogan will endure across the nation."
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami

"'Death to America' has been the symbol of our freedom movement since the inception of Islamic revolution. However, if we are forced to become pragmatist and abandon it let's not pretend that this chalice of poison is a cup of honey."
Emad Forough, former MP

Iranian girls, one of them holding up a caricature of President Barack Obama while others hold pro-government posters, attend an annual state-backed rally in front of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Nov. 2, 2012. The rally marks the Nov. 4, 1979, storming of the building by militant students who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days to protest U.S. failure to hand over the toppled shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran for trial. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi of the powerful Revolutionary Guard, not shown, addressed the rally saying the U.S. must annul the CIA, pull out its warships from the Persian Gulf and dismantle its military bases from 50 countries around the world if it wants to restore ties with Tehran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

That was then, this is now. But what is familiar and has become a valued cant, cannot so readily be abandoned. "Mawrg bar Amrika" has been a staple chant of public hatred for the United States of America at all ceremonies in Tehran and other major Iranian cities during official and unofficial occasions since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The first publicly significant act of the revolution with its international reverberations was the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by militant students. The siege resulted in a 444-day hostage crisis. The strident antipathy that it represented by the new theocratic Iranian Republic against the imperialist United States has never abated. And the hate-filled phrase became a popular unifying message of the Republic.

Under financial pressures as a result of the country's resistance against the international community's response to Iran's nuclear program, the endurance of the regime to struggle under the sanctions has caused it to falter in its hostile aggression. A least on the surface. A new facade has been introduced, one of concessionary compliance. While it has no depth, the pivot has appeared to charm the gullible in the international community, and particularly the United States.

A charm offensive was launched with the 'election' of a 'moderate' president replacing the former administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinajad whose bellowing animosity and defiance more accurately depicted the attitude of the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. But the Iranian theocracy is nothing if not cunning, realizing that it was time to present itself differently, and at the United Nations President Hassan Rouhani did just that.

The country's newly accommodating attitude of smiles replacing scowls, and soft words of reassurance replacing thundering threats has reassured and heartened the American, French and British administrations, happily prepared to do business with a seemingly chastened regime promising to be more sensitive to the concerns of the IAEA and the EU.

Even while Iran asserts it has no intention whatever of surrendering its nuclear program, uranium enrichment and centrifuge production, the G5+1 states its pleasure over the manner in which negotiations are now headed.

It would hardly do to have the public chant in unison as in the past, 'Death to America', belying the charming new administration's efforts to disarm the distrust of the country's nuclear program. Iran's former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani, supporting President Rouhani's efforts at achieving detente with the West was himself criticized by hardliners within the administration critical of the new soft approach.

He has been accused of "distorting:" the "anti-American legacy" of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leading cleric of the 1979 revolution whose piety and resolute steering of the country into its current Shi'ite totalitarian theocracy has become a template for all aspiring Islamist fundamentalists of the Sunni fringe terrorist elements, despite that the sects positively loathe one another.

However, in tune with the new drive to appear comfortable with a new, friendly relationship with the United States, it is seen by Mr. Rouhani's regime as time to surrender the 'Death to America!' phraseology it has so long been accustomed to blessing upon the Great Satan.