TEHRAN, Iran -- At the sprawling old U.S. Embassy in the center of town, neat lettering on a brick wall still makes a promise: "We Will Deliver America a Severe Defeat."
Across the street, at an Iranian handicraft shop, a smaller sign makes a promise that has more immediacy: "Visa and MasterCard accepted."
Iran is a nation trying to meld its revolutionary fervor with the running of a modern state. But the mix has brought problems.
The country's economy is wobbly. Complaints about rising prices are thick on the streets of the capital.
Support for the Islamic government has dropped; some local protests have led to riots. "Officialdom's efforts to bring the situation under control," a Tehran newspaper editorialized last week, "have turned to dust."
President Clinton is trying to increase the squeeze. Last week he signed a trade embargo against Iran and is lobbying other countries to join the ban.
"We are under pressure," acknowledged Ali Khamooshi, an economic analyst and president of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce. "But it is pressure we are withstanding."
America sees Iran as the arch-villain, a monolithic regime preoccupied with terrorism and the pursuit of a nuclear bomb. But critics say that U.S. policy has missed the complexities here.
Iran is an authoritarian regime. But people criticize the government -- while not using their names -- and the newspapers take careful but pointed potshots at ministerial misdeeds.
It is a religious theocracy. But women, under their black chadors, are more engaged in work, education and society than in most neighboring regimes. At home, people wear what they want, drink bootleg vodka and watch pirated videos, confident there will be no government raid.
It has street scenes that could be from the Middle Ages, with robed clerics and women veiled in black. But Tehran has remained a modern, managed city since the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah and installed an Islamic government.
Iranian-born Shirzad Bozorgmehr returned in 1992 after more than 20 years in California to see how Iran had changed. He stayed.
The chief editor of the English-language Iran News, he sits in a busy, computerized newsroom, barking out assignments, wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots.
"Honestly, I came here expecting a hellhole. I was very pleasantly surprised," he said. "I was surprised that the shops were full of food, instead of bare. I was given to believe if you say anything or do anything, the government will put you in jail, which is total nonsense."
The Islamic clerics have declared war on Western ways and culture. But in many ways, the clerics are losing.
Girls wear blue jeans under their all-enveloping chadors. Coke is preferred over its Persian knockoff, Parsi-Cola. Drivers bop to Western rock on the highway, discreetly turning down the cassette tape at traffic lights.
The clerics' dilemma can be seen in a guardhouse of the old U.S. Embassy compound. The guardhouse now is a bookstore, clumsily named the Center for Publication of U.S. Espionage Den's Documents.
Here one can still buy copies of the embassy's classified papers, salvaged from the embassy's paper shredder. The whole 42-volume set can be had for $25, said the clerk working there.
But he displayed none of the zeal of the students who seized the compound in 1979, held members of the staff hostage and branded America evil.
"I don't particularly like working here. I just take the money," said the 27-year-old clerk.
There still are true believers in Islamic revolution. They are easily found at the tomb of the revolution's religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose scowling visage and hooded eyes gave shudders to the West until his death in 1989.
His shrine outside Tehran is a sprawling complex of gold-colored towers, tubular steel and reflective foil magnifying the glitter of a huge chandelier over the ayatollah's tomb. Its beauty is a test of devotion.
Akhbar Zahari, 28, visiting the shrine with his family, says he rarely misses a demonstration against the United States.
"It's obvious America is against all humanity and all poor people," said Mr. Zahari, a guard at Tehran's Evin Prison, a notorious compound for political prisoners.
The problems in Iran are not the fault of the government, he said. "It's the fault of the people. We do not follow Islam enough."
But many other Iranians are weary of the rhetoric. The revolutionary enthusiasm is missing. The demonstrations organized to chant "Death to America" have become a stilted ritual.
The government-supported newspapers are full of bluster about the Great Satan, but the letters to the editor are more often about the prices in the market.
The major hotels -- once the Hyatt, Hilton and Sheraton, now the Azadi, the Esteghial and the Homa -- have in their lobbies "Down With USA" crafted in black tile. But the hotels greet American guests like long-lost friends.
