Should Iman Foroutan go back to Iran one day, he better not make it one day soon. He is in big trouble. He has spoiled Death to America Day.

At least Foroutan believes that is what he has ruined. Our story begins with an invitation that quietly arrived in some homes and offices around the nation's capital last month from what is called the "Iranian Interests Section," a diplomatic fiction created inside the Pakistani Embassy to pretend that the United States and Iran have nothing official to do with each other while their diplomats lunch with ours.

"On the occasion of the twenty Sixth anniversary of the glorious victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the director of the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Washington DC Mr. Ali Jazini requests the pleasure of you and your family at a dinner reception and celebration on Sunday, the sixth of February, 2005 at 6:00 p.m."

This invitation raises two important questions:

1) Given the Islamic Revolution's record for hospitality to Americans -- you will recall that a number of them were guests of the revolution for 444 days -- how long will this party last?

2) Why did Mr. Jazini capitalize "Sixth" but not "twenty" in his invitation and should he not have used a hyphen?

The mysteries of Farsi grammar and syntax must be laid aside here. Let us consider the first matter. Mr. Jazini rented the upper floors of the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, arranged for room for as many as 1,500 guests, and awaited the great day.

Foroutan, an Iranian expatriate, learned of the forthcoming festivities because he heads a semi-revolutionary group of Iranian exiles who would like nothing better than to overthrow the Islamic Republic and the mullahs who run it, and put in its place the Middle East's second elected government. He was on the air at his satellite television station, which beams into Iran, when a confederate in the states phoned in and read his invitation.

"Feb. 6 is reserved for 'Death to America Day,' " said Foroutan, who had previously set aside today to watch the Super Bowl. This is somewhat in dispute. Other calendars have set Nov. 4 as Death to America Day. Still other calendars place it in early February, though not necessarily on the Sabbath. Possibly it is safe to say, what with extremist conspiracies and terror networks and the funding of assassinations and the murders of civilians that, where the current Iranian regime is concerned, every day is Death to America Day. But until this week, they had generally celebrated it in places other than America.

Thanks to Foroutan, a cascade of telephone calls washed over Bob Daley, manager of the hotel. By the time I reached Daley, he had met with Jazini and, well, if you're looking for an available ballroom at short notice, there is an opening in Bethesda.

"I met with the organizers and the event is cancelled," Daley said. Because Washington is, after all, a city of diplomats, he declined to say who cancelled whom, but Jazini was spending much of last week trying to notify his intended guests that the revolution will be honored privately this year.

This will not likely bring down the regime of turbaned clansmen that presently afflicts the people of Iran. But Foroutan's success in embarrassing the agent of a theocratic junta reflects, perhaps, just how wired the opposition to Iran has become. His satellite TV show gets calls from inside that godforsaken place.

The extent to which it has penetrated can be found in the fact that its structure resembles most guerrilla operations. Each cell is composed of a few members. One cell does not know the members of another. If the regime breaks one, the others are safe. The "Islamic revolution" could well be overthrown by a revolution of people who happen to be Muslims, but view themselves as human beings with inherent rights whatever their clergy might say.

What Foroutan's supporters would put in the place of the mullahs is unclear. One of the more popular figures in Iran just now is Reza Pahlevi, the son of the late shah or the shah in exile depending on which day you ask him. Pahlevi had himself crowned shah at the age of 18, while living in exile in Cairo. Today he prowls a suburban Washington home, access guarded by a handful of maddeningly polite and equally obtuse aides who promote his book, which leaves the reader unclear about whether Reza would like to be Iran's next king or just another citizen.

The larger portion of Iranians seem to favor some form of democratic republic. Seventy percent of Iran's population is under the age of 35, meaning they have little or no memory of the shah. Their recollections of the glorious Islamic revolution are more likely to feature adulterers hanging from cranes than the Ayatollah Khomeini returning to a crowd of exultant citizens happily rid of a U.S.-imposed king and his secret police.

I should like to close this piece with the reaction of Ali Jazini. It is a convention of fair commentary that the ostensible target of criticism should have his say. I tried repeatedly to reach Jazini by telephone at the Iranian Interests section and inevitably ended up in a sort of voice mail jail -- possibly an apt metaphor for a nation that has been on a sort of autopilot since 1979.

This is not a unique dilemma. When U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, D-N.J., wanted to complain about Iranian state television's ongoing dramatic series, the plot of which was based on an Israeli prime minister attempting to lure Iranian children to harvest their organs for transplant, his staff found itself in the same odd dilemma.

They were ultimately able to get a regular postal address. The letter went out Jan. 18. No response has been forthcoming.

This is how tyrannies fall: They are slow, they are clumsy, they schedule a party on Death to America Day. Ultimately they are cancelled. Let it be soon.