And we start to walk out the door. It's not because I'm a lousy tipper. I'd already heard about this gesture yesterday from a Frenchman who had just visited Tehran. At first I don't tell my girlfriend about all this symbolic throat-cutting. But eventually I have to mention my goodbye message at the restaurant as we walk off into the silence of the city's 10 p.m. streets.
People say there is much unhappiness with the rule of the mullahs in Iran.
In the 1998 parliamentary elections for the Assembly of Experts, clerics ensured that the candidates who could run were predominantly conservative. Only 46 percent of the population bothered to vote. It had already been decided behind closed doors by the mullahs. This is Khomeini's real vision of the world's first Islamic theocracy, an indisputable leader who can interpret God's will with an iron fist wherever and whenever necessary. President Khatami is an anomaly in this scene, a freak victory in a landslide people's vote that saw 76 percent of the voting population, mostly women and the young, turn out to elect him two years ago.