It was meant to be a crowning moment in which Iran put its own Islamic stamp on the Arab Spring. More than a thousand young activists were flown here earlier this week (at government expense) for a conference on "the Islamic Awakening," Tehran's effort to rebrand the popular Arab uprisings of the past year...
But there was a catch. No one was invited from Syria, whose autocratic president, Bashar al-Assad, is a crucial Iranian ally. The Syrian protesters are routinely dismissed by Tehran's government as foreign agents -- despite the fact that they are Muslims fighting a secular (and brutal) dictatorship.
That inconvenient truth soon marred the whole script. As the conference began, a young man in the audience held up a sign with the word "SYRIA?" written in English. Applause burst out in the crowd, followed by boos. Audience members began chanting the slogan of the Syrian protesters: "God, freedom and Syria!" But they were drowned out by others chanting pro-Assad slogans.
Soon afterward, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, took the stage to deliver his opening remarks and tackled the subject with his characteristic bluntness...
Those words drew choreographed chants of approval from a claque in the audience. But many participants clearly were not buying, and the uprising inside the conference hall seemed to have left its mark. In the afternoon, journalists were barred from the proceedings...
During a break in the proceedings, a 31-year-old Libyan named Hafez al-Razi Abdollah stood outside in the sun, holding up a Libyan flag and talking to reporters...
When asked why Iran still supported the Syrian leader, he smiled dismissively. "Ahmadinejad supports him because they're both Shiites," he said. (In fact, Mr. Assad is an Alawite, a heterodox strain of Islam, but that distinction is lost on many Arabs.)