Tehran has been thought of as simply a mistake. Fifty years ago Western “advisors” would incredulously demand of their Iranian hosts, “You call this a city? This is nothing but an overgrown garden.” Obligingly the Iranians eradicated the garden and built Tehran. Maddeningly now the foreigners are more incredulous than ever. “You call this a city? This is simply a concrete wasteland!” Most of the foreigners who come here are simply peddling better mousetraps, however. Aside from the carpetbaggers there are a few visitors, who feel as if they were being forced to look at a distorted reflection of themselves in some grotesque carnival mirror. Here they find the doctrines of progress and the dogmas of development parodied by overearnest disciples; nowadays some of the most vehement proponents of the “Western” concepts of materialism are Easterners.