Repressive Islamic rule loses its lustre in Iran

We were told it was Iran that had invaded Iraq, and Saddam Hussein was a moderate democrat fighting the good fight against Iranian theocratic extremism.

There were other myths. Iran was just one Islamic hotspot in the world. The other was Afghanistan, where theocratic-minded tribal warlords were battling the military might of the Soviet Union.

America and the West were opposing Islamic theocracy in Iran and yet were supporting it in Afghanistan.

In mosques and Islamic centres across the Western world, including New Zealand and Australia, young Muslims were taught that the Iranian-style Islam was evil and anti-Western.

Meanwhile the Islam of Saudi Arabia and the Afghan mujahideen was presented as good and pro-Western. Iran's main proxies have been various Islamist political movements and militias that have struck US interests both directly and indirectly in various parts of the Middle East.

These include Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and more recently the dominant faction in the democratically elected Government of Iraq.

The great irony of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime was the power vacuum was soon filled by America's sworn enemy.

American troops maintain security in a country effectively administered by Iranian proxies.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution. Iran has become a regional superpower, one of the few Middle Eastern nations with some kind of functioning democracy.

Yet the battle for Iran's future wasn't won by the religious elite in 1979. In the elections reformists battled the eccentric conservative President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. They want to see a return to the liberal days of former President Mohammad Khatami.

Most Iranians are under 30. They are an educated generation that knows only a repressive revolution whose Basij or morality police regulate their lives.

Iranian Muslim youth aren't the only ones disillusioned with theocratic politics. Many young Muslims in the West like myself, once attracted to political Islam, have now become disillusioned in it.

At the same time, we feel disenchanted with Western attempts to manipulate it, then demonise it when it suits. When politicians attempt to co-opt religion, both religion and politics lose in the end.