IRAN: Massoumeh Ebtekar, Iran's former vice- president, talks to Lara Marlowe in Tehran
Massoumeh Ebtekar knows all about fraught US-Iranian relations. Now a professor of immunology, her extraordinary life has so far included childhood in Philadelphia, fame as the spokeswoman for the Iranian students who seized the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, and eight years up to 2005 as vice president of the Islamic Republic of Iran - the highest office ever attained here by a woman.
The embassy siege took on new significance yesterday when, according to Al Jazeera television, 200 Iranian students went to the former chancery and signed a paper expressing their willingness to carry out "martyrdom missions" if the US attacks Iran.
Like everyone else in Iran, Ebtekar wonders whether the United States will bomb the country's nuclear power programme. "There's an escalation of rhetoric on all sides," she says. "When a country faces threats and a lot of pressure, and feels cornered and is facing double standards, it moves towards extremes. That is what has happened. I don't believe it's irreversible."
Despite her revolutionary credentials, Ebtekar passes for a moderate reformer in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran. "There are a lot of things we can still do to prevent a war," she says. "Like going back to the negotiating table, like recognising the natural rights of Iran [ to civil nuclear power]." Confusion between civil and military nuclear programmes is at the heart of Iran's dispute with the US and Europe, and Ebtekar does nothing to dispel the ambiguity.
"Iran sees how its neighbours have been dealt with," she says, alluding to the invasion of Iraq. "We see the double standards towards Israel, India and Pakistan [ all of whom possess nuclear weapons]. As soon as North Korea announced it had a nuclear weapon, they were left alone. Nuclear capability puts you in a secure position. It gives you more security than economic strength. This is reality in today's world."
While insisting that Iran does not want the bomb, Ebtekar provides arguments why it should. "Saddam Hussein received the active support of the US to invade Iran [ in 1980]," she recalls. "Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad to encourage Saddam to attack us. We've been through all sorts of economic blockades and political pressure. But in 28 years, the Islamic Republic has never engaged in aggression."
Ebtekar seems to come close to acknowledging a military programme. "It's very natural when these pressures escalate that [ Iranian authorities] feel the need to defend themselves," she says. "This is the strategy they are following now."
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has suggested repeatedly that Iran needs security guarantees if it is to be persuaded to abandon its nuclear power programme.
"How would we be able to receive real guarantees from a country with a history of pre-emptive attacks?" she asks.
"In attacking Iraq, the Americans undermined the principle of multilateralism and the image of the United Nations," she continues. "It's a very similar pattern to what they did in Iraq, but they are facing different circumstances. Diplomacy is the only solution. They have to reverse their policy towards Iran."
The US and Iran have announced their intention to hold talks with a view to calming the violence in Iraq. "Since the negotiation on Iraq is on the table, it is possible to include the nuclear issue," Ebtekar says. "Direct negotiations are always preferable; it could be a way out."
Ebtekar does not regret her role in the 444-day saga. She joined the hostage-taking students three days after they overran the diplomatic mission, a story she recounted in her memoirs Takeover in Tehran.
"The US failed to realise that ours was a genuine revolution, that people wanted change," she says. "Twenty-eight years later, they still have not digested it. They are still in denial . . . Iran does not bow to foreign pressure. It defends the interests of its people and the region . . . Americans always tried to bully Iran; they have to treat us as an equal in negotiations."
Ebtekar puts the embassy takeover in the context of the US coup against the Chilean president Salvador Allende and the Anglo-American coup that overthrew the democratically elected Iranian president Mohamed Mossadegh in the 1950s. "The students had every reason to believe it was happening again, especially when the shah, who was a tyrant and a traitor, was admitted to the US on the pretext of medical care," she says.
The students decided they "had to take strong action".They "were not terrorists, not fanatics - on the contrary, they were enlightened Muslims who believed in the principles of Imam Khomeini", she insists.
Though Ebtekar accuses the US of failing to learn from its mistakes, she does not draw lessons from what she calls the "peaceful action" in taking the embassy staff hostage and demanding the extradition of the shah. "We thought it would be over in a few days," she says. "We didn't calculate the diplomatic consequences. We were young and inexperienced."
As in 1979, Ebtekar's flawless English could make her a go-between between Americans and Iranians, I suggest. "Old foes, new friends," she laughs cryptically. Nearly three decades later, both sides still feel they're the wronged party. "They were the first to sever diplomatic relations,"she says. "They cut the strings, they should mend them."