Iran has a fervour for science. Its stem-cell research is nearly as advanced as Britain's

It was advertised as a rally to show the people's enthusiasm for Iran's nuclear programme, but the black-clad old women clutching photographs of their dead sons were thinking of conflicts past, not dangers to come. The Iranian government's attempt to show national unity in advance of this month's board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency was a gathering of the lame and the grieving. They were bussed into Ayatollah Khomeini's shrine, just south of Tehran, with its golden minarets and blue domes, above a cavernous hall that has all the spirituality of a bus terminus. Past scaffolding and concrete mixers they filed in - the ayatollah died in 1989, but the shrine is an eternal work in progress.

I asked two women what they knew about the meeting in Vienna."Is it about the revolution?" asked one."I don't know anything about it," said

another. "The big men, the politicians, know about

that. I'm from a martyr's family. All I know is that I've come here to defend Iran to my last drop

of blood." The cry went up: "Death to America!"

The posters on the walls were written in English

(well, a form of English) for the benefit of the foreign media. My favourite read: "The government council! If you are happy with such resolutions, if you are celebrating the issue of such resolutions, issue more resolutions to be happy but know

that you cannot prevent the scientific progress of our country."

To outsiders it may seem like a contradiction, but Iran's adherence to an almost medieval belief in the value of martyrdom and suffering is matched by a fervour for modern science. Iranian scientists are conducting stem-cell research nearly as advanced as the work of their British peers. Soon, the

first Iranian cloned sheep will be born. The in vitro fertilisation

programme for childless couples is well advanced. So the idea that Iran would want to research nuclear energy simply to advance its scientific and technological prowess is universally accepted. It's the one issue that unites the chador-wearing women and their wealthy sisters in north Tehran, with their headscarves pushed back and shorter coats every year.

Iran's public position is clear: it says it is not building a bomb. Most Iranians I meet accept this, despite the doubts of foreigners and the "unanswered questions" of the IAEA. They think America and Britain - the old enemies - just want to stop Iran's scientific progress. "These meetings like the one in Vienna are so that powerful countries can oppress weaker countries," explained a veteran in a wheelchair. I've heard similar sentiments from middle-class Iranians in north Tehran. When John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, tells a meeting of Israelis and Jewish Americans that America will use "every tool at [our] disposal" to counter Tehran, the Iranians, not surprisingly, feel threatened. Unlike in Iraq, where many welcomed the war as the only way to get rid of Saddam Hussein (however much they may have come to regret it since), few Iranians seem to think American intervention can solve their problems.

This is a drama where everyone is playing their national diplomatic stereotype to perfection. The Americans issue threats. The Iranians invoke battles and martyrdom. The Europeans rush from side to side trying to tease out the least worst option. The Russians try to cut their own deal. The Chinese say little, but keep making money. Years of US sanctions have convinced Iran that it can play one country off against another, and it may yet be proved right.

The US imposed sanctions in the early 1980s, after the revolution and the hostage crisis. "These sorts of sanctions are mostly gestures of anger," said Masoud Ghadesi, a businessman who used to represent a US firm supplying oil well-heads and other equipment. "It became a sort of a blessing in disguise because we had to develop some technology ourselves. It's not perfect; it's not the best; but it's competitively priced and it works."

At Shamsabad, south of Tehran, a Chinese-Iranian joint venture is manufacturing valves for the oil and gas industry. Twenty-five years ago these would have been purchased from the US. Iran Air, and half a dozen smaller carriers, keep ancient Boeings in the air with black-market spares from the Far East, as US sanctions prevent them from obtaining genuine parts. It is not entirely safe. None the less they manage, and now plan to buy Russian aircraft to replace the ageing fleet.

Being beleaguered fits with the culture of martyrdom. Iranians say they can weather the nuclear storm. Outside Ayatollah Khomeini's shrine, a group of men from the "Isagaron", the organisation of those who would go to any lengths to defend the nation, had built a styrofoam model of Natanz, the site of Iran's nuclear enrichment plant.

The man presented as the model designer pointed out the rickety aluminium reactor, but confessed he wasn't quite sure what the other buildings were because he had worked from a fuzzy aerial photograph. (He wrote "nuclear energy" in blue pen on the reactor, in case anyone had doubts.) As far as he was concerned, developing nuclear power was like learning to make well-heads: a way of asserting Iran's independence.

It will take a lot more to persuade Iranians to abandon such aspirations than the $75m Condoleezza Rice has requested from Congress for a state department propaganda campaign.

Lindsey Hilsum is international editor for Channel 4 News

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