Iraq was different because it was Arab, and thus joined at the hip to all the rest of the Middle Eastern imbroglio, of Israelis and Palestinians and the secular socialist experiments of modernization in the Egypt of President Gamel Abdel Nasser or Syria's Baathists.

Iran was different because it was Persian, heir to a proud and ancient empire that had been civilized when Athens and Sparta were just clambering out of barbarism. Iran was different because it had never thought of itself as anything but a great power.

Iran was different because it as the first place where pious and resurgent Islam challenged and overthrew and replaced the secular modernizers.

And above all Iran is different because we are all waiting for its elections next month.

Despite - and some Iranians would still say because of - the ayatollahs and the fall of the shah, Iran is enough of a democracy that the results of this year's presidential elections matter a great deal.

Much of the current Iranian posturing over nuclear weapons, or rather over the enrichment process and the nuclear fuel cycle, can be linked to the campaigning season.

This may not be an election campaign of the kind the United States endured last year, nor will it resemble that stately dance through the marginal constituencies of the English shires and suburbs that re-elected Tony Blair 10 days ago, despite the interesting fact the Conservatives won more English votes than Blair's Labor Party.

The Iranian elections may, curiously enough, be more logical than the Anglo-Saxon versions, so long as one does not think the will of the people matters much.

The crucial electorate is the Guardians Council, the body that decides who may be a candidate for the presidential election on June 17. Only four from more than 200 candidates were allowed to stand in 1997, and only 10 of 814 would-be candidates in 2001.

Among those rejected was Ebrahim Asqarzadeh, one of the students who stormed the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and these days a liberal reformer who leads the Solidarity Party and denounces "widespread militaristic ideas."

This is interpreted to mean he does not want an Iranian nuclear arsenal. He wants to run, but probably will not be allowed to stand.

There are two other "moderates." Hojatoleslam Mehdi Mahdavi-Karrubi, a former speaker of the parliament and leader of the Militant Clerics Association who sits on the Expediency Council and is an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and who is cautiously prepared to resume diplomatic relations with the United States. But then he is prepared for relations with any country "except Israel, of course."

Then there is Dr. Mustafa Moin, a medical man and former minister of Education who is the candidate of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Mujahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization. He is also prepared to talk to the United States so long as Washington apologizes first. So much for the "moderates."

The conservatives are sharply divided among themselves, over ideology and personalities but also over the division of the spoils. Iran is deeply corrupt, ranking 87th of 145 countries on the Transparency International index.

The religious and the revolutionary foundations (bunyads) that run over a third of foreign trade and own large swathes of the economy are used to finance the parallel religious government, to arm and train and support foreign allies and terrorist groups like Hezbollah, and to provide fat incomes for the widely loathed aqazadeh, the sons of prominent clerics.

So some of the Old Guard are trying to rally around Ali Larijani, who was minister of Culture and ran the state broadcasting service while also holding high rank in the Islamic Revolution Guards Ministry.

These days he sits on the Supreme National Security Council as personal representative of the Supreme Leader, and makes fiery speeches denouncing corruption.

He is backed by the Coordination Council of Islamic Revolution Forces, and who is gung-ho for the nukes, declaring "any concession on nuclear technology is tantamount to the biggest treason."

There is the former head of the air force and national police chief Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, 43, who told President Mohammad Khatami in the 1999 student riots that if the president did not order the students to be crushed, he would do it himself.

Then there is Mohsen Rezai, veteran head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and now secretary of the Expediency Council, who condemns the "humiliating" foreign policy of Khatami. The popular "straight-talking" mayor of Tehran, Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad is running on an anti-corruption ticket.

But these divisions mean that the front-runner is likely to be the man who served as president from 1989-97, Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

As a close aide to Ayatollah Khomeini, the religious leader who led the 1979 uprising that overthrew the shah, Rafsanjani benefits from the mantle of history, and retains great influence as chairman of the Expediency Council.

A pillar of the Iranian establishment, his feud with Khamenei gives Rafsanjani an intriguing flavor of rebellion.

Rafsanjani is also the ultimate pragmatist of Iranian politics. He is not a man who inspires great trust. For Iranian audiences, he denounces the United States with venom, supports suicide bombers against Israel, and reminds people that he was the first to advocate an Iranian nuclear weapons program back in the 1980s.

But in a recent interview with USA Today, he suggested reopening relations with the United States, and his supporters are claiming he has a secret plan to work with the Saudi monarchy to bring peace to the Middle East.

Other aides claim that he is a discreet moderate and democrat who wants to trim the powers of the religious leadership. Rafsanjani is being portrayed as the only bulwark against a military coup by the Revolutionary Guards and the Security and Intelligence arms, all working with the religious ultras of Qom.

As matters now stand, Rafsanjani is the only candidate with a chance of winning who might be prepared to negotiate away Iran's nuclear program. He also looks like the only potential president with even the ghost of a chance of getting the military and security establishment to carry out an order to drop the nuclear program.

But remember the pragmatist; if Rafsanjani can get away with turning Iran into a regional superpower with a nuclear weapon, he will; if the price to be exacted by the United State and Europe looks to be too dangerously high, and the rewards are attractive enough, he will play for time and be prepared to deal.

If Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had a vote in next month's elections, they would probably go for Rafsanjani - and politics being politics in Washington, London or Tehran, that is exactly what his political rivals will say to discredit the old man.

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