As an Iranian-American writer, I just wanted to offer a few brief thoughts on the current simmering conflict, which is threatening to boil over…
Despite claims of a clash of cultures or civilizations, Iran and the United States actually have some common interests in the Middle East. And had history played out differently, the countries might even have become allies, while Iranians and Americans could have been colleagues especially in the arts and sciences. But to forge a new relationship, at least one of mutual respect, it will require coming to terms with America’s oppressive past in the region.
Azadi Tower, Tehran
Britain was once Iran’s biggest nemesis, but the US government took on that mantle in 1953. That was when the CIA played a major role in overthrowing Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s popular elected leader who had the gall to nationalize the oil company later known as BP, which had for decades been extracting Iranian oil to grease the wheels of the British Empire.
US officials re-installed the Shah, a brutally repressive autocrat who was so disliked that Iranians united to overthrow him. Students, activists, trade unionists, poets, and Islamists came together in that revolution, but the latter shunned the others and assumed power when the dust settled. US governments since then have failed to understand Iranians’ anger against them. The US supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, shot down a civilian airplane that killed 290 people, invaded Iran’s two biggest neighbors with more than 100,000 troops, supported Iran’s two biggest rivals with powerful weaponry, installed dozens of military bases that surround the country, insisted Iran’s part of some Axis of Evil, and repeatedly hit Iranians with sanctions, to which they have no recourse. No wonder Iranians feel threatened.
Iran remains a divided country: many Iranians support their government in response to the Trump administration’s crippling economic sanctions and assassination of General Soleimani while others oppose their government’s mishandling of the economy and limitations on their political freedoms. (Some Iranians are in both camps.)
“That’s history” is a dismissive phrase in America, but to Iranians, a proud people whose trials and achievements go back millennia, history matters indeed.
I’ve visited many places throughout Iran to give talks and to see family. Iranians have their own critically acclaimed and Oscar-winning films, but they love American movies, too. They quote their own poets and writers, but they also read American literature. They have plenty of physicists, astronomers and doctors — algebra, optics and pediatrics all arguably began in Persia — and these accomplished scientists would jump at the opportunity to collaborate with their American counterparts.
Relations between the two nations seem to be at their nadir, but both Americans and Iranians don’t want war. If the Trump administration and leading Democrats realize that the days of US empire in the Middle East are over, they can step back from the brink of war, withdraw troops and military bases, and stake out a path toward peace, which would greatly benefit the people of both countries.
Ramin Skibba 