For all the talk of a “hard-line pariah state,” something had indeed softened in Iran. Both the Pahlavi and Islamic regimes had earned grisly reputations for their ferocious security apparatus—the secret police who spirit adversaries away to feared Evin Prison—yet now people on the street spoke openly and unafraid, with typical Iranian humor. This stood in sharp contrast with the Arab world, where self-censorship had gripped tongues for decades.
