Few things are as they seem in Tehran

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They file in slowly, patiently submitting to body searches, men in one line, black-clad, head-scarved women in another. Most are poor, old or very young, and most are ready for some America-bashing.

It's Friday, the Muslim holy day, and thousands of Iran's faithful are again gathering at Tehran University's main campus for what has become a weekly ritual; the men under a sprawling blue metal canopy that shelters up to 7,000, the women close by but set apart.

The heat is searing and the mood placid. But suddenly, the diminutive mullah leading the prayers is gone — and in an instant the atmosphere turns as confrontational as the new message being hurled into the microphone by his belligerent black-bearded replacement.

"America is the greatest Satan of them all!" the stocky firebrand howls. "Down with the U.S.!" comes the response, first from a few, then from the full gathering.

The voices are thunderous, but the faces are curiously emotionless. It's not the first time this crowd has been worked to lash out at Washington, and it won't be the last.

The expressionless faces offer a clue — this is a regular staged performance, a message from the official Iran, which is only one face of Iran. For all it takes is a scratch in the surface to reveal a surprise in this teeming, smoggy and chaotic metropolis. The chatter of a myriad of other voices is startling in its defiance of the party line and threatens to drown out the government message of strict Islamic piety and distrust of the West.

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Few countries are as important to the United States right now as Iran, and surely few are as little understood.

This country of more than 71 million people boasts of its nuclear program as the crown jewel of its future energy supply, in clear defiance of U.S. fears of nuclear weapons. Iran has also run up smack against the U.S. in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, as it strives to resurrect its ancient role as a regional power.

Since Islamic firebrand president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took over three years ago from a more moderate government, Iran's leaders have been more enthusiastic than ever in preaching hatred of America. Yet at the same time, and in reaction, a more reform-minded public has become contemptuous of the mullahs and clerics, bending when it has to and doing what it wants otherwise.

It seems the more strident the official drumbeat, the more it is tuned out by Tehran's young and better-educated.

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"The real Tehran is like a playing card. You have to flip it over to see its true side." Elhaam smiles as she offers this piece of wisdom, well aware that she is a piece of the puzzle.

Elhaam is single — not. She holds a "temporary marriage" license, which allows her and her boyfriend to share a hotel room when they travel, or indeed any bedroom at all. It is a seeming Catch-22 in a country where sex out of wedlock can be punished by death, and where police occasionally swoop down on women showing too much hair under their scarves or too many curves under their Islamic robes.

Mohammed is said to have recommended the practice to his soldiers. It's no longer part of mainstream life in most of the Muslim world, dominated by Sunnis. But "sigheh" remains enshrined in law in Shiite-dominated Iran, allowing couples tired of secret love affairs to come out of the closet.

The ritual is simple — in theory. Couples go to a cleric in a marriage registry office carrying the woman's divorce papers or, if she is a virgin, parental consent. A fee is paid, and papers are issued legalizing the relationship for as short a time as 30 minutes or as long as 99 years.

And if things go wrong, either partner can call it quits within a minute.

In practice, says Elhaam, things were more complex. She lied to the mullah that she was divorced. He didn't believe her but took a bribe. And while she subsequently told her mother, she still hasn't confided in her father, a year after the fact — and a year after his stroke.

"I have to prepare him for this," says Elhaam. The 29-year-old commercial artist with expressive brown eyes and a gentle smile asks that her last name not be used, less because of the stigma many attach to "sigheh" and more because she lied to get the papers.

She heaps scorn on the mullah for taking the $1,000 bribe, even while praising him.

"He was a bastard but at least he did something positive for us," she says. "Not like our leaders."

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Bad news for the U.S. administration: Washington's full-court press on Europe to cut trade with the Islamic Republic because of its nuclear defiance is a flop, both in dollar figures and by what's available on store shelves.

Iran imports 44 percent of its goods from Europe. And while some major European companies like Total, the French energy giant, are heeding government pressure and reducing their exposure, others continue to invest heavily in the Iranian gas, oil, mining, automotive, transportation and communications sectors.

Europe last year imported more than $12.7 billion in merchandise from Iran. Its exports totaled nearly $18.57 billion. And those figures do not encompass black market imports from neighboring countries.

What is bad for Washington is good for Tehran, where the street offers plentiful evidence of a rampant consumer culture colliding with the Islamic Republic's official, austere image.

In downtown Tehran, images of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution's founding icon, glower from prime outdoor advertising space above slogans proclaiming: "Our Unity leads to the defeat of the Superpowers." A huge wall mural depicts the Star-Spangled Banner with an Iranian twist; the stars are skulls, and the stripes smoking bomb trails.

But Beemers beckon from other billboards, and at Tehran's upscale Tandis Center indoor mall, Behnom says sales from his perfume business run as high as $150,000 a month.

Much of the fashion focus is youth-driven. In Tehran's sprawling metropolitan area of 9 million, an estimated 60 percent of the population is younger than 25, born after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"We import illegally, from Dubai," Behnom says, asking not to be fully named in exchange for discussing details of his dealings. "In this business, the only problem is flights — if sanctions expand to flight bans, we're in trouble."

The man behind the iPod counter is less open but just as positive.

"If you're asking about business, it's good," he says. "If you want to know where we get them from, I won't tell you."

Standing near a rack of jeans as well-stocked as any in the West, Benneton sales associate Omid Shahpasand says the merchandise comes "direct from Italy."

"There is no problem," says the lanky 21-year old. "Business is good."

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But it's an uneven picture.

Most of the hip establishments are in the city's north, home to the better-educated and better off. In the south, many women wear the long, enveloping black chador, and pictures of Khomeini and the current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, dominate street murals.

Read more @ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/08/30/international/i100723D82.DTL&type=politics