Addressing a largely Iranian-American audience in Los Angeles on Saturday, President Clinton expressed hope for more openness and freedom in Iran after the reformists’ sweeping parliamentary election victory.

He expressed regret that Iranian-Americans had to leave their "native land (Iran), one of the most wonderful places in all of human history, one of the most important places culturally in all of human history."

Clinton hoped that someday all Iranian-Americans "may be able to go home to visit and have two homes, complete and open and free."

These respectful statements are indicative of Washington’s realistic approach toward Iran as a phenomenon. But the Iranian-Americans’ return to Iran is a complex issue that cannot be settled just overnight.

Calling the expatriate Iranians "the precious assets of the country," President Khatami recently invited these Iranians to return to the country, a move that shows the top executive’s good will and recognition of the national identity of Iranians abroad.

This is while over the past two decades Iranian officialdom considered expatriate Iranians as "counter-revolutionaries" or, in most optimistic cases, viewed them as second class citizens. In return, these expatriates regarded the Iranian state and government illegitimate.

Even lackluster measures by former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani during the 1990s failed to make Iran attractive enough for the expatriate Iranians to want to return to the country.

The Khatami-era ideal of national unity and "Iran for all Iranians" has, however, provided both sides with the chance to recognize each other and embark upon dialog to reach understanding.

But due to the political diversity of the expatriate Iranians whose political awareness is not often as high as their academic and financial standing, such a dialog should take place in a depoliticized atmosphere. And one point should also be accounted for: the Iranian government should not take dialog to mean that these Iranians want to return.

Most expatriate Iranians left the country following the 1979 Islamic Revolution due to their dissatisfaction with Iran’s new political and social climate and with the Iran-Iraq war and its upshots.

Ever since they left Iran, these expatriates have settled in different parts of the world and have at times become so attached to their new homes that virtually most of them have no thought of returning to Iran.

The expatriate Iranians, especially in the US where they comprise huge numbers, belong to three different generations: the aged, the middle aged, and the youth. The majority of these expatriates lack profound political perception, yet are well-heeled and highly professional.

The aged expatriate Iranians are nostalgic for pre-revolution Iran. As their personality has been shaped under the Shah, they mostly lack in-depth power for political analysis. Their patriotism and love for Iranian culture is a superficial and popular nostalgia. After residing abroad, these people have mostly faced a chronic psychosis because their cultural and political identity has not at times been duly credited.

The middle aged expatriate Iranians were the youth of the 1980s who left Iran due to the Iran-Iraq war and its consequences and also due to the fact that their views and cultural demands differed from those espoused by the Iranian government and the state.

After settling abroad, this generation has gone through some schizophrenic moments. But thanks to the Iranians’ historical adaptability, this group has made efforts to independently retain the minimums of its national identity.

The young expatriate Iranians mainly harbor no particular likes or dislikes toward the Iranian government and even Iran in general. But due to the absence of a cultural relationship between this group and the Iranian government, they lack a thorough cultural understanding of Iran and cultural Iranian personality. As such, these youth are in dire need of cultural awareness of Iran. They are, moreover, the best group for the Iranian government to target to establish sound relations with.

Cultural deficiencies and shortcomings aside, the expatriate Iranians comprise well-off and professional people in Europe and the US. Unofficial statistics indicate that more than 70 percent of expatriate Iranians hold degrees and have top specialties and posts.

In the US where a small percentage of the total population holds college degrees, 75 percent of the Iranian-Americans are college graduates. This prominence is more outstanding when it comes to the financial realm.

Statistics indicate that the total gross product of expatriate Iranians is higher than Iran’s overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Based on the 1999 annual UN report, expatriate Iranians have $200 billion in assets and liquidity. This is while Iran’s annual oil revenues amount to only $16 billion.

Considering these outstanding features of expatriate Iranians, Tehran should be able to fully recognize their national identity, especially that of Iranian-Americans, to create a friendly relationship with this group which has very high professional and financial capabilities.

This will be a beneficial investment for Iran, an investment that will insure its national interests and that can, in the mid-term, also compensate for this group’s expatriation, since these expatriates could serve as a powerful lobby in the US to affect and tilt the US administration’s decision-making process in favor of Iran.

The Khatami administration has taken the first step to this end by explicitly recognizing the expatriate Iranians and opening its arms to them for national reconciliation.

Now it is up to the expatriate Iranians to recognize the Iranian government and optimally seize the historical opportunity to be linked with their homeland and put a seal on all nightmarish years away from Iran.

By relying on the model of CNN’s famous Iranian-born reporter Christiane Amanpour, the Khatami administration can approach the expatriate Iranians in the same way that it has approached Amanpour.

As with many other expatriate Iranians, Amanpour belongs to the young generation of the 1980s who left the country due to the permeating problems of those years. But after going through difficult years abroad and making professional advancements and achievements, she has been able to assert herself for the Islamic Republic.

This is while Amanpour is not an Iranophile. Nor does the Iranian government take her to be so. As with many expatriate Iranians, her analysis and awareness of Iranian realities and developments is often inaccurate, if not unfriendly. But her professional dialog with Iran in essence and her travels to the country allow her to assert her Iranian identity and legitimize the Iranian government in the eyes of the Iranian viewers residing abroad.

Facing the Iranian expatriates like it has faced Amanpour, the Iranian government has moved away from dividing the citizens into first class and second class and considers all people to be national citizens.

The Iranian government is mature enough not to expect all expatriate Iranians to be "Hizbullahis" (extremely fanatic and devout Muslims). Nor does it expect the same from the Iranians inside the country.

Whether they live inside or outside the country, the Iranians demand only a minimum level of welfare, peace of mind, and security, alongside the freedom explicitly stated in the Constitution. After Khatami took over, the government has attempted to remove discriminatory policies against the Iranians, such as branding them as first class and second class citizens.

Under this new approach, perhaps the most propitious practical measure at present would be to give a seat of the Iranian Parliament to a deputy who would represent the Iranians living in the US. This is the most logical and palpable right of the Iranian-Americans, some 500,000 of whom live in California alone.

The Iranian Constitution states that every 300,000 people can have one representative in the Parliament. This right can be logically recognized for the Iranian-Americans, especially as such a seat would simultaneously serve two purposes: First, the Iranian-Americans will have a representative in the Parliament. This will restore and strengthen their self-confidence. Second, the Iranian government will find a way to address the expatriate Iranians through their own representative who can also speak directly to US officials. This can serve as a fit corridor for Iran and the US to settle their differences.