- Do you know that the full official name of the country is The Islamic Republic of Iran?
- Did you know that they had a presidential election and a runoff this summer?
- Did you know that unelected religious figures decided which hopefuls would appear on the ballot and declared others ineligible?
- Do you know they have an elected parliament?
- Do you know that the same unelected clerics “vet” the candidates for parliament as well, and also veto any laws that they disapprove of?
- Do you know that the voting age in Iran is 15 years?
- Do you know that Iran’s population has grown rapidly and that a majority of the people are too young to remember when the American embassy staff was taken hostage in 1979?
- Do you know that there is a democracy movement among Iranian students who want to enlarge the freedoms they already have and do away with the extreme religious laws?
- Do you know that some of these young student activists still look to the United States and other Western nations as examples of democracy?
- Do you know that there are uranium mines in Iran?
- Do you know that uranium enrichment is a dual-use technology, that is, it has both civilian and military applications?
- Do you know that the European nations who are pressuring Iran to cancel its plans to enrich uranium, are hoping to sell them uranium enriched in Europe?
- Which of these are your main sources of news on television? NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox, other: ____
[Originally published in 2005.]