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As a psychiatrist living in the United States, Dr Jamshid Bakhtiar analyses Iran’s post-election crisis in academic terms, but his views are rooted in deeply-felt personal experience: he lived through the tumult of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and its turbulent aftermath.

Once Iran’s clergy took power, he says, it was assumed they would not oppress, having themselves been oppressed by the monarchy. But, Dr Bakhtiar says, those who have been oppressed often unconsciously identify with their former tormentors and “even though you think that you’ve gained your freedom, you act just like the oppressors that you wanted to get away from”. Iran’s rulers “treat the nation’s adults as if they were children”...

Dr Bakhtiar’s nephew, Jahanshah Javid, an Iranian-American of a younger generation, edits a popular community website that gives him a unique insight into the views of the Iranian diaspora. “Democracy is an idea whose time has come for Iranians. We may not see this regime fall apart in months or even years, but we have turned a corner,” he says.

Few are more plugged in than... Mr Javid, 47, who runs iranian.com, a website he founded in 1995. It covers issues of identity, culture, music, history and literature and carries blogs and readers’ feedback as well as stories.

“Almost no one has written in defence of Ahmadinejad or the Islamic republic,” says Mr Javid. “There are those who are suspicious of the West expl... >>>