Sir

I was horrified to read the text of your Editorial “Revival in Iran” (Nature 442, 719–720; 2006 10.1038/442719b). I cannot comprehend how one of the world's leading scientific journals could publish an article calling for scientists to adopt a benign attitude towards the present Iranian regime.

I was impressed by the sentence in the Editorial citing the fact that one of the current government's “first acts was to wipe out the debts accrued by universities”.

Nevertheless, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has also called publicly for my own country to be “wiped out” — from the map of the Earth. He has also been a consistent Holocaust denier, even organizing an exhibition of cartoons poking fun at the Holocaust.

At the same time, human rights are being trampled in Iran, as noted by independent organizations such as Amnesty International (see http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/irn-summary-eng). The regime commits many other crimes at home and abroad; it is described by the US State Department, for example, as the world's “most active state sponsor of terrorism” (see http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/2006/65559.htm).

One needs a unique degree of detachment to commend the regime for a presumably liberal attitude to science and higher education, while looking away from the dominant aspects of its essence and policies. I strongly urge Nature to reconsider its position.