TEHRAN, IRAN—It wasn’t quite President Bush, the flight suit and “Mission Accomplished.” But Vice President Dick Cheney still managed to flex some rhetorical muscles from the hangar deck of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis on Friday.

Speaking just 150 miles off the Iranian coast, Mr. Cheney proclaimed, “With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike.”

He added, “We’ll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”

Mr. Cheney’s remarks may have pleased Washington hawks. They may also have mollified some U.S. allies in the Middle East whose nervousness about Iran will only have been increased by this week’s IAEA announcement that the Ahmadinejad government is beginning to enrich uranium on a greater scale than ever before.

But in downtown Tehran on Monday, Mr. Cheney’s verbal comments didn’t seem to be having much effect.

“That is all just empty bluff,” 37-year-old Mohammad said with a mixture of scorn and nonchalance as he took a break from working in the Farhang Cinema on Shariati Street. (The Grudge was showing alongside two Iranian movies.)

Mohammad is no fan of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, nor is he blind to his nation’s problems. Iranian society, he complained, is riddled with corruption and inefficiency:

“Most of the people have economic problems but rich people can access whatever they want. Some of the people who run the country don’t even have a school diploma, while people with university degrees can’t get a proper job.”

His dissatisfaction with Iran’s failings was, however, more than matched by a visceral distaste for American foreign policy. Referring again to Mr. Cheney’s remarks, he said: “The American government wants to appoint its own government here. It has always wanted that, and the reason it is against Iran is because it has not succeeded.”

Similar sentiments emerged in numerous interviews with Tehranis this week. Even the most politically active opponents of Mr. Ahmadinejad insisted that change in Iran must be a truly indigenous project, and cannot be forced by American military intervention or political meddling.

On the face of things, Davoud Hermidas Bavand seems a perfect fit for the Washington template of an advocate for change. Mr. Bavand, a political analyst who lectures in international law at Tehran University, was educated in part in the U.S. He is affiliated with the Iranian National Front, a secular and pro-democracy movement that is so harsh a critic of the status quo that its candidates are not permitted to stand in elections.

“People are not happy with Mr. Ahmadinejad and his entourage,” Mr. Bavand said. “People are tired of extremism and fundamentalism. They want answers on things like unemployment—the real problems of Iranians. Talking about the Holocaust—whether it was six million who died, or five million, or less—is of no concern to Iranians.”

But Mr. Bavand is dubious, at best, about American expressions of concern in relation to human-rights abuses in Iran.

“They close their eyes” to Saudi Arabia’s human-rights abuses, he said, “yet they pay close attention to Iran. If it were really a principle, it would not just be applied to one nation.”

As for Mr. Cheney’s speech, Mr. Bavand said that “it creates anxiety and insecurity in the minds of the Iranian people.

“We believe the U.S. naval force is there not just for exhibition; it is there as a last option. We look at how the U.S. Congress wants any military action against Iran to be taken only with [its] permission. But that means this idea is on the agenda of American foreign policy!”

Mr. Bavand made no bones about his dislike of an Iranian system of government he described as “totalitarian and theological.” But, he added, “We are in favor of peaceful change from within, not from without.”

On Sunday, Mohammad Atrianfar was celebrating the arrival of his new newspaper, Hammihan (“Compatriot”), on Tehran’s newsstands. Mr. Atrianfar’s crumpled, professorial appearance belies his considerable influence as both a prominent journalist and a close ally of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

“If we want to curse people in other countries, we say, ‘May they be cursed with their own Ahmadinejad,’” he said with a laugh.

But Mr. Atrianfar contended that an informal coalition is already forming within the Iranian body politic, drawing together reformists and conservatives. He suggested it needed no outside help.

“The coalition is not formed of people with the same opinions,” Mr. Atrianfar said. “They are opposed to Mr. Ahmadinejad, so they have a common enemy.”

Such an ideologically mixed coalition would be almost inconceivable in Western politics. And the shape-shifting nature of Iranian politics can be bewildering for an outsider. Mr. Rafsanjani, the former president, has maneuvered between conservative and reformist positions for years; the newly re-elected mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Qalibaf, is ostensibly a conservative, but is also emerging as a key opponent of Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Atrianfar insisted that those in the West befuddled by such apparent contradictions and looking for evidence of change should be patient.

“Until the time that Iran has real political parties, you foreigners will always find it difficult to understand,” he said affably. “There is a turbulence between the layers of Iranian politics that you don’t understand.”

The lack of comprehension on that issue may extend to Washington. The White House last year began a $75 million program for the promotion of democracy in Iran. Mr. Bush told the Iranian people that the U.S. “stands with you” in the struggle for “liberty” during his 2005 State of the Union address.

But few credible Iranian politicians seem inclined to stand with—or even near—Mr. Bush. And even fewer Iranians, politically engaged or otherwise, see much wisdom in Mr. Cheney’s threats.

“I love the American people and American culture, but I don’t like the government of the U.S.,” said Mohammad, outside the cinema. “If the U.S. attacks Iran at any time, I would go and fight them right away.”