... 36 years after a vast and diverse movement of Iranians coalesced around the elderly Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to overthrow the shah’s corrupt rule, the unique, theocratically controlled electoral polity he established sits today on the precipice of a huge change. ... My visit, coming after two years of seeking a journalist’s visa to report from Iran, represented something special: I was the first journalist from a Jewish, pro-Israel (if not always pro-Israel government) publication to be granted a journalist’s visa since the 1979 Revolution. Whether this was a reflection of increased openness by the government I cannot say. My visa came only after a former representative of Iran’s Jewish community in the country’s parliament wrote a letter on my behalf. ... I had lived in Iran for almost two years in the late 1970s, just before the revolution. ... The Nematollahi sect that had been the object of my housemate’s devotion [pre '79 revolution], like most Sufi orders, has faced harsh persecution in contemporary Iran. So do the Baha’i, seen as followers of a heretical offshoot of Islam. According to Human Rights Watch, even Sunni Muslims face discrimination. The Iranian Jewish community, whose members are today free to stay in the country or emigrate, currently numbers anywhere from 9,000 to 20,000, depending on whom you talk to, and down from 80,000 to 100,000 before the revolution. These Jews — along with Christians and Zoroastrians — are tolerated and protected under Iranian law, but subject to a number of discriminatory laws and practices that limit their opportunities for work in senior government posts and in other ways. But they do not limit their opportunities in business. The Jews, who felt free to complain to me openly about these areas of discrimination, as they do to the government, are basically well-protected second-class citizens — a broadly prosperous, largely middle-class community whose members have no hesitation about walking down the streets of Tehran wearing yarmulkes. ... The Islamic Republic’s decision to grant me a visa just as Congress is debating the nuclear agreement could have been a well-timed move to influence that debate. ... Far from the stereotype of a fascist Islamic state, I found a dynamic push-and-pull between a theocratic government and its often reluctant and resisting people. During the course of my conversations with several senior ayatollahs and prominent political and government officials, it became clear that there is high-placed dissent to the official line against Israel. No one had anything warm to say about the Jewish state. But pressed as to whether it was Israel’s policies or its very existence to which they objected, several were adamant: It’s Israel’s policies. Others, notwithstanding their ideological objection to a Jewish state, made it clear they would accept a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians if the Palestinians were to negotiate one and approve it in a referendum. Ordinary Iranians with whom I spoke have no interest at all in attacking Israel; their concern is with their own sense of isolation and economic struggle. ... among ordinary Iranians the sense that something is now opening up in the country is pervasive. ... In Iran today, freedom of the press remains a dream. But freedom of tongue has been set loose. I was repeatedly struck by the willingness of Iranians to offer sharp, even withering criticisms of their government on the record, and their readiness sometimes even to be filmed doing so. ... [I]n Iran there are three players: the people, the government and, for lack of a better term, the Deep State, which in the person of the supreme leader claims to act on God’s behalf to ensure that neither of the other two parties strays beyond God’s boundaries as defined in Islam. ... Since the 1979 Revolution, most of the darkest chapters in Iran’s national narrative have stemmed from the actions of this Deep State. In 1988 it was the Deep State that executed an estimated 5,000 to 30,000 citizens deemed leftists, counter-revolutionaries or heretics; the exact number isn’t known, because the executions were done in secret. Much more recently, it was on Khamenei’s order that security forces moved to ruthlessly suppress mass protests that erupted nationwide in 2009 ... I passed through a security checkpoint in Tehran’s domestic air terminal and showed my U.S. passport to a guard who told me, “More of you should come!” ... I entered the vast, monumental burial site of Khomeini and, on being told I was an American Jew, the Revolutionary Guard on duty waved me through with a huge grin, allowing me to enter with my camera, against the rules. One of his comrades posed happily for a photo with me. ... Underneath the superstructure of Iran’s theocracy, a panoply of activists, thinkers and ordinary citizens are struggling to understand the world around them, from which they have been largely isolated — partly by international sanctions and, more importantly, by a government monopoly over information that seems to work, however imperfectly. ... The Internet, another potential information source, is stringently censored. ... This leads to a paradox: In contrast to Americans, who are often uninformed, Iranians are very much up on the news, but often profoundly misinformed, especially about the outside world. But they are curious. ... “America is a rich country with advanced technology, a huge army, enormous size and a large population,” he [a Rev. Guard at Khomeini's tomb] said. “Iran is a small country with a small army, much less developed technology and much poorer. Why would Americans be afraid?” ... Curiously enough, it was among some of Iran’s most senior ayatollahs that I found indications of serious debate — or at least divergences from Khamenei’s official position [on Israel/Palestine]. ... “These negotiations are only about nuclear issues and sanctions,” he [Ayatollah Saanei] complained to me through my translator. “They don’t relate at all to human rights! Basically, the negotiations were not about humanitarian beliefs or spiritual matters. It’s just about money. ... Before anything else, human rights. Freedom of speech and writing. Freedom of thought. Encouraging people to develop their creativity, instead of this huge investment on military and other facilities. ... If Netanyahu cares about people, why is Israel exiling people and killing them? ... The idea that Israel should be destroyed is Ahmadinejad’s ... What Israel should do is change its policies…. It’s impossible to destroy a country.” ...