I told him, but if Iran is attacked, Iranians will all suffer to no end.  

The lines spoken by that man have always stayed with me.  

For nearly four decades, Iranians have lived under oppression, tormented by corruption, mismanagement, and the burden of sanctions.  

Yet, I believe most Iranians do not want their county to be attacked much less destroyed. Yet, there are those who want regime change at any expense.

Perhaps some “L.A. types” or some monarchists are rooting for it.  In fact, in recent weeks, some in the Iranian diaspora have been calling for direct attack.   

As history shows, foreign intervention does not ensure the well-being of the citizens of those countries involved.

Look at Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan.  Life is not better, nor is democracy in full swing in any of these countries. 

In 2006, the Bush administration allocated some $75 million for regime change in Iran.

Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared that the US would “actively confront” Iran and called for an extra $75 million to fund anti-Tehran propaganda and to support opposition groups inside and outside the country.

  There were many willing Iranians who accepted funds and worked towards that goal.  NGOs too were involved in this initiative, among them the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Tavana, Freedom House, Iran Wire and various others in and around the Beltway. 

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) received a good chunk, close to a million dollars.   A few Iranian “analysts” were and are working for this entity. 

“Azadi Tower under Attack,” Digital, Midjourney, 2024

In 2007, John Mearsheimer, the Chicago professor who co-authored a book on the Israeli lobby, described FDD as part of the Israel lobby in the United States.  

In addition to making money out of the “regime change” gravy train, there are also those who seek money by suing the Islamic Republic.  Many names come to mind, even some progressive Iranians.  

According to Mr. Hooman Fakhimi, a lawyer in California who has tirelessly investigated these lawsuits.  Nearly 200 billion dollars has been filed in judgement against the Islamic Republic in various courts by individuals and organizations from victims of 9/11 (!) to those whose families were directly or indirectly harmed.  Many of these lawsuits are spurious.  Even Ukrainian nationals have entered the fray, presumably because Iran has sold drones to the Russians in its war on Ukraine.   

Mr. Fakhimi acknowledges that if all these lawsuits succeed, “It could bankrupt Iran.” 

The Israeli regime under the war-monger Netanyahu has been itching for a war with Iran for years. Remember him showing maps and graphs at the UN every year?

Additionally, most mainstream U.S. media,  mainly CNN and MSNBC warn us daily of an upcoming surprise attack on Iran.

It is as if we are watching a war game on play station.  But this is no child play.  It is the real thing as we witness the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza and Lebanon.

Is Iran next?

As an IDF spokesman said recently, “Iran is next.”

Israel has destroyed Gaza and is now in the process of destroying Lebanon.  The excuse is Hamas and Hezbollah. Many in the Israeli government are now openly spewing the idea of annexing and appropriating the occupied West Bank, the Gaza strip and parts of Lebanon. 

War is always destructive.   Look at Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon.

Far from bringing about regime change, an attack on Iran will only strengthen the current rulers in power.

A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare. -Mahmoud Darwish

Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – A few days before the invasion of Iraq by American forces under G.W.  Bush, on March 16, 2003, a young woman from Seattle, Washington, who had gone to Rafah, in Gaza to help Palestinians halt the demolition of homes died under the bulldozer of the Israeli army.  

Her name was Rachel Corrie. 

She was 23 years old. She was a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) 

Her parents fought the judiciary system in Israel for two decades to no avail.  The court rejected their appeals, and no one was prosecuted.  It is the usual case in Israel, the only “democracy” in the Middle East.

On May 11, 2022, the renowned Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, while reporting at the Jenin refugee camp and having reported from the occupied territories for nearly 25 years, was shot in the neck by IDF while reporting for Al Jazeera.   It took more than a year for the Israeli officials to admit that their army was responsible for her death.   Was anyone put on trial for her murder?  No. 

She was wearing a blue vest with the word Press on it.  An Israeli solider shot her just below her helmet.  While her funeral was being held, all kinds of barriers were set to prolong the procession.  She was finally laid to rest in the Mount Zion cemetery in Jerusalem where she was buried next to her parents.  She was a Roman Catholic.

On September 7, 2024, a young woman also from Seattle, this time a Turkish American aged 26 had gone to the West Bank for the very same reasons.  She was shot in the head by the Israeli Army.

Her name was Ayşenur Eygi.

She was also a volunteer with the ISM and had recently graduated from the University of Washington.  She and others including many Jewish activists had been demonstrating against an illegal outpost called Evyatar, an offshoot of the settlement of Beita. 

She had arrived there only two days before her untimely death by a gunfire of an Israeli soldier. Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli peace activist, participating in Friday’s protest was an eyewitness. He held her bleeding head before the ambulance arrived.  She died at the hospital.

She, like Rachel, had a full life ahead of her. 

Not only did these women want a better world but they also put their aspirations into action. They could have had a career like so many others but instead they took a different route: To be instrumental in making a change in this very unjust world of ours. 

Rachel had been born into a middle class, peace-loving family.

Ayşenur was born into a Turkish American family. She resisted and struggled for the right of a people whose livelihood and land were being stolen by settlers, guarded by the most immoral army in the world.

She was shot to death like countless others since and before October 7. 

The Americans and the Israelis did nothing to secure justice for any of these women. 

 In another part of the Middle East, on 16 September 16, 2022, a young woman named Mahsa Amini, also known by her Kurdish name Jina, went to Tehran with her brother and friends to have a good time.  She was twenty-two.   She was stopped by the morality police and taken to a van by force.  She was interrogated viciously for not having the right hijab and was hit hard on her head.  She was taken to the hospital and a few days later, after going into a coma, she was pronounced dead.  She was not political.  Her only sin was that her attire was not to the liking of the authorities.   What followed later after her shocking death was the largest uprising in Iran called Woman Life Freedom, perhaps the largest feminist movement in our time.  

Photo by Inimafoto A: https://www.pexels.com/photo/plate-with-a-slogan-woman-life-freedom-14413071/

In the Middle East and elsewhere, women have proven that they will take to the streets and encounter the oppressors to fight for freedom whether for others or themselves. 

It will not be the last time nor the only time.

Just like a century ago,  Mary Harris Jones—aka “ Mother Jones ” who was also called “the most dangerous woman in America”,  walked miles to fight for freedom and the rights of workers,  these young women also took their fight to the streets of Jerusalem, Rafah, the West Bank, Tehran and elsewhere to prove that women will not be stopped — not by guns, by bulldozers nor intimidation.

In our household, Mosaddegh stood tall. His photos were everywhere.     I knew how much my father admired him and looked up to him.  Still, until I read more about the man, until I read his works, I didn’t realize how much he had impacted my life and that of others.

Secularism is a casually used term.  But what does it really mean?  Mosaddegh, believing in the separation of state and religion, grasped its essence.  He also believed in the rule of law.  In those times, the rule of law meant nothing in Iran.  He advocated a free press even if that free press criticized him.  He was an educated man who wrote his thesis at the university of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, which in 1914 was published as Sources of the Rights of Muslim.   (Sources du droit Musulman) in 222 pages.

Mosaddegh came from nobility—he was a member of the Qajar dynasty—but he went against that nobility. He not only advocated democracy but went against his own tribe.

He stood up to corruption.  He stood up to power and thus became the target by Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah.

He was imprisoned by Reza Shah and later by Mohammad Reza Shah.  Both men feared him. 

One of the few politicians of Iran who stood up to corruption, he also stood up to the British rule.   He believed that the U.S. would support him in his effort to nationalize the Iranian oil.   Alas, the Americans didn’t.  

A British politician said, “Our policy, was to get rid of Mosaddegh as soon as possible.”

After the Coup, Anthony Eden, the then British foreign minister, on his yacht in the Mediterranean said, tonight I can sleep easily.   

Mossadegh and his lawyer, Nosratollah Amini in Ahmadabad

Mosaddegh believed in his people.   He was tried for treason, spent 3 years in a military prison and then spent the rest of his life exiled in Ahmadabad.   

Seventy-one years ago, on 19  August 1953, a coup was organized against him by MI6 and the CIA and their paid Iranian agents.  After the Coup,  the men and the many unknown women around him who went to prison included my own father. They were all individuals of high integrity.  A rare phenomenon these days. 

May his ideals and ideas become an inspiration for future generations of Iranians who wish to build a nation based upon the rule of law and democracy in their country.  

Before America went to war in Iraq in 2003, the argument was that Saddam had chemical weapons.  The lies were spread by the Neconservatives, including Netanyahu.   At that time, the then secretary of state Colin Powell — who later apologized — went before the UN and showed (non-existent) evidence that the Iraqi government had compiled weapons of mass destruction. It was all a hoax.    After the invasion, the U.S. military found no stockpiles.  

In 2002, Israel also claimed that every suicide bomber was paid $25,000 by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein regime.  None of it was true.

The Israeli government under Netanyahu has made many false statements throughout the years about Iran. Iran is an obsession for him.   Not that the Islamic Republic is not guilty of many wrong doings however the truth is that more Iranian officials were assassinated by Israel than Iran ever dared to do so vis a vis Israel.    Nuclear data was stolen from Iran.  No doubt it was the work of Mossad. 

On January 3^rd, 2020, General Soleimani was assassinated by the U.S. on Iraqi soil on the orders of Trump.  But Trump didn’t act alone.  The decision was made in Tel Aviv.

All the while, the Trump administration, upon the advice of Netanyahu, got out of the nuclear deal.   It was a setback for peace in the region. 

Now Netanyahu comes before the U.S. congress while thousands protested his presence.  Many hostage families left the chambers in defiance of his lies.  

In the last nine months, forty thousand Gazans have been murdered and the people of the world including many Israelis and many Jewish Americans have demanded a cease fire to no avail.  

The lying PM whose premiership is held by a threat lied again.

He insulted American protestors as “useful idiots” paid by Iran.  The absurdity of this claim is so far-fetched that even a few American media outlets mocked him. 

He has zero credibility.  

The Islamic Republic may have engaged in many dubious acts against its own citizens, but who is Netanyahu to cry wolf when he and his “humanitarian” IDF has been engaged in a genocide against unarmed civilians, killing babies and children, women, and innocents. 

The Palestinians of Gaza are left with nothing.  Nowhere to go, no home, no schools, no hospitals, no universities, no mosques, no churches. Only rubble after rubble which according to various estimates, it will take a decade to remove the rubble.  

All the while, his right-wing fascist government glorifies this attack and shows no willingness to make a deal for the release of their hostages.  

The world is outraged while this clown shows his face in U.S. soil and spews lies about an Iranian hand in the recent protests just like when he did about the danger of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons or when he claimed that in Iran nobody wears jeans!   Thousands in Iran posted their photos with their jeans.

This last performance by Netanyahu is most probably the very last even if many in the U.S. congress who are paid by AIPAC loudly clapped and gave him standing ovation. 

A shift in the U.S. policy towards Israel is necessary as we see it happening before our eyes.  The farcical notion that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East has crumpled with this assault on Gaza.

 Maoz Inon, an Israeli who lost his parents in the kibbutzim on October 7 was involved in the DC protests alongside his Palestinian friend who had also lost his brother at the hands of Israeli interrogators ( Inon’s family did not seek revenge).   He said Bibi’s brother died in courage, but Bibi will go down in history as the one who could not even defend his own people on October 7.   They were busy grabbing land for the settlers.   

It is time for him to go away and for the American lawmakers to show real spine and not invite war criminals to address them.

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Middle East Eye Video: “Unpacking Netanyahu’s Lies Before Congress”

The 2024 presidential election took place after the former President and warden of Evin prison, Ebrahim Raisi, died in a helicopter accident. In Iran, nobody believes things happen as “accidents.” But nothing points to foul play in this case.

Out of the original six candidates, two became the final contenders: Said Jalili, a hardliner who had been involved in the nuclear negotiations, and a new guy, Masoud Pezeshkian. The latter’s name means doctor, and indeed, he is a heart surgeon. Unlike Raisi, who had a 6th-grade education, Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon and also speaks several languages, including Kurdish, Azeri, and English. The turnout was very low this year. As people have been losing faith in the outcomes of elections, fewer and fewer go to the polls.

Born in Mahabad, in the eastern Azerbaijan province in 1954, Pezeshkian received his doctorate degree in medicine at the University of Tabriz and later specialized in heart surgery at the University of Tehran’s medical school. At the onset of the Revolution, Pezeshkian was a member of the Council of the Cultural Revolution, which purged many secular individuals from universities. He served as Minister of Health during the second term of President Khatami and had a noncombatant function in the Iran-Iraq war. After his military service, he returned to Tabriz and continued to practice surgery, eventually becoming chancellor of the city’s medical school. He was a candidate in the 2021 presidential elections but was disqualified by the Expediency Council.

In 2024, he finally succeeded, being elected as Iran’s ninth President with 53 percent of the vote in the run-off election. While even some reformists did not go to the polls, ex-President Khatami was among those who voted for Pezeshkian. The Islamic Republic finds new players and new “moderates” to lead the country, but the president has limited power and acts only in accordance with the Supreme Leader’s wishes.

CTV News Video added by Informed Comment: “Nader Hashimi: Why Pezeshkian’s win may not bring ‘dramatic change’ to Iran”

Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a political scientist who follows the presidential elections in Iran closely, wrote,

“This election was different because the first-round results marked the lowest voter turnout rate in any presidential election since the revolution, signifying serious discontent. The only other time when presidential elections went to a second round was in 2005, where fewer people took part in the second round. This time, however, some 6 million more people (10% of eligible voters) came out to vote in the second round, and they overwhelmingly voted for Pezeshkian.

“This indicates that despite their overall dissatisfaction, a segment of the public can be persuaded to change its mind when the stakes are too high. This election marked the narrowest margin of victory for the eventual winner over the runner-up (9.3%). This signifies the fact that we have a polarized public in Iran. After all, Jalili won at least 13 provinces (out of 31) in both rounds of the election.”

Whether Pezeshkian, with his narrow powers, can deliver anything remains to be seen.

In 2009, Iranians lost their faith in presidential elections when their votes were stolen. And since then, hopes for change have faded. Two years ago, the Women, Life, Freedom movement was violently crushed. Sanctions, mismanagement, wars in the periphery, and corruption have paralyzed the very system that promised the world but delivered economic malaise and the political isolation of the country. Pezeshkian has promised reform and reform of the system. In a televised speech to the nation, he shared the problems Iranians experience in their daily life.

Can Pezeshkian save the Islamic Republic? Will rapprochement towards the U.S. finally happen? Not as long as Ali Khamenei is alive.

While all eyes were on Gaza and the genocide taking place, an event in the mountains of Iranian Azerbaijan changed the news.

The death of President Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage, including the foreign minister Abdolahian,  after a helicopter crash in the mountainous region of northern Iran will leave no vacuum.  At least that is what most analysts say.   In fact, as long as Khamenei is alive, no real changes will take place.

As all things indicate, there will be some mourning by a segment of the population and then life goes on and business as usual.

Raisi was just a puppet as his deputy who will be an interim president is the man behind the scenes having enormous economic leverage and close to the supreme leader’s confines.

Raisi was 63 when he died.

Raisi was fifteen when the Iranian Revolution happened.  He soon joined the ranks of the Islamic revolutionaries and rose up in status and found an opportunity to become a prosecutor at the age of 20.   He was not alone in this rapid accession to power. 

The infamous Death Commission was comprised of all young men, some clergy and some not.   They oversaw the execution of some 4000 political prisoners, some of whom whose sentences had finished, waiting to be released.  Their families, waiting for their beloved, only got a bag of their belongings instead of welcoming them.

Iraj Mesdaghi, who was one of the former pollical prisoners, released later, has written extensively about those days, the cruelty of the guards and the role of Raisi. He recounts: “There was a young man who was from Karaj, Raisi knew him from his days as the prosecutor in that city; his name was Kaveh Nesari. He had been hit hard on the head and didn’t even know why he had been arrested. As a result, he had epilepsy and could barely walk. He was condemned to death. Another prisoner lifted him up and carried him to the gallows, all under the watchful eyes of Ebrahim Raisi.”

“Thousands mourn at Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s funeral procession” | Al Jazeera Newsfeed Video

Young men became members of the Basij militia and Revolutionary Guards paramilitary at the beginning of the Revolution.   They represented perhaps a segment of society who were uneducated and deeply religious.   What Raisi represented was exactly the ones who were marginalized during the Pahlavi era.   They did not belong to the intellectual elite who had very little connection to the masses of people in the rural areas. 

In many ways, we can compare them to a large portion of Trump supporters.  

Raisi and his ilk came to power when nationalists and leftists and all others were undermined.  The taste of power and greed for money overwhelmed them to the extent that holding on to it meant the oppression of others.   Oppression of women under Raisi became even worse.  The gasht ershad or the morality police,  which had been non-existent during Rouhani came into full force, thus resulting in the incident that took the life of Mahsa.

When Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman was taken, beaten, interrogated harshly, and went into a coma and died a few days later, all Iranians and the world reacted.   She was not the only one.  Dozens of women, young and old were taken into custody, raped and murdered.  The feminist movement, Zan, Zendegi, Azadi came into being.  The world responded.  Eiffel tower was lit with the slogan.   Women, Life, Freedom.

I remember visiting Iran in 2017 and 2019.  I saw many young women with little hejab or not at all.  No one said anything and no one did anything.  Things changed with Raisi’s presidency. 

The men of the Islamic Republic have used every measure to silence women.  Sometimes women of their own league are also involved.   This was the case with Mahsa; her interrogator was a lumpen accompanied by his female interrogators.

The harsh measures taken during Raisi’s term, even with his populist image (going to villages and spreading “good-will”)

Included more suppression, more executions, more torture, and more strangulation of the Iranian society.  

The economy under Raisi sank.  It was not just the sanctions but mismanagement and corruption.  

Whether anything new will happen, it is hard to tell.  Iran is always unpredictable.

On Friday morning, Israel launched missile strikes on military bases near the Iranian city of Isfahan.

A desperate Netanyahu, seeing Western support for his total war on Gaza collapsing, began this tit-for-tat cycle by launching an assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria on April 1^st 2024.   The Israeli government knew what they were doing.  Netanyahu was baiting Tehran into a reaction, which he got.

Iran responded with a missile and drone barrage on April 13. Almost all these projectiles, however, were shot down by the United States, since Iran had openly telegraphed its intentions.

The context for this exchange of strikes is the Israeli assault on Gaza. Netanyahu’s government has killed more than 34,000 people.  The numbers are not clear, since the ones under the rubbles of Gaza cannot even be calculated.

14,000 children.

Today, Gaza is worse than Dresden after the war.  

Hamas, of course also committed atrocities against the Israeli population on October 7. Over 600 innocent, noncombatant Israelis were killed, alongside more than 400 Israeli military personnel.  Many of the civilians were peace-loving people, who disagreed with their own government’s punitive policies toward the Palestinians. The response of the far-right wing Netanyahu government, however, has been vastly disproportionate.

Another issue between the two countries has been Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program to create fuel for its reactor. Netanyahu fears that it can easily be militarized, and had created a spectacle at the UN showing off Iran’s alleged nuclear capabilities.   

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) refuted him, insisting that Iran has no military nuclear program.

Netanyahu’s charges obscured the imbalance of power between the two countries. Considering that Israel has 300 nukes, Iran, which has none, can be wiped off the map in a matter of minutes.

The IAEA’s assurances notwithstanding, the Israeli government under various Israeli administrations has assassinated nuclear scientists inside Iran. 

Israel, with the help of the expatriate Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organization, which was until recently on the US State Department terrorism list, also stole nuclear data from Iran.

Then, Trump came along, and he withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, to which Iran had scrupulously adhered, mothballing 80% of its civilian nuclear enrichment program for promised sanctions relief that was never granted.

The decision to rip up the deal was made in Tel Aviv, not in Washington. 

Now, Mr. Netanyahu  has a last chance to get his allies to rally behind him when both his support at home and internationally has dissipated. Since the war in Gaza has not gone well and has isolated his regime, his government, a very right-wing government, is looking for alternatives.

CNN Video: “Israel has attacked Iran, US official tells CNN”

The Islamic Republic has been been building deterrence by supporting the various groups in the Middle East, whether Houthis, Hezbollah or Hamas.

Several IRGC commanders were assassinated, including Ghassem Soleimani. 

The shadow war has continued.  Hezbollah launched missiles at the territory of Israel.   Houthis fired on cargo ships in support of Gaza. 

In his most recent speech at the UN, the Israeli ambassador compared the regime in Tehran to the Nazi regime.   How can an educated person even compare the two?  The Nazi regime eliminated millions of Jews and others. 

Iran has the largest Jewish community after Israel.  Khamenei is no Eichmann, despite what Netanyahu keeps alleging.

We, as Iranians and Iranian Americans wish for a better Iran without the rule of the clerics.   But not at the expense of the disintegration of Iran.  There is no question that has been Netanyahu’s wish. 

Many years ago, at a conference at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, I remember the notorious Michael Ledeen had invited non-various actors from different ethnic minorities of Iran. Those speaking on their behalf did not even represent the Iranian minorities.  At the end of the conference, where Paul Wolfowitz was also there, (the one who advised Bush to go to Iraq) all the speakers said we want a united Iran.

It was a total failure. 

To this day, Iran has been a united nation and Iran is a nation state. 

Iranians want a regime change but not by the help of any foreign entities, but rather with their own volition.

No war is going to solve anything.   We are all united against a war on Israel or the Israeli nation and on Iran and the Iranian nation.

We need clearer, sounder voices to come to the fore.

 In the words of the great Sufi poet of Iran, Rumi,

“Out beyond the idea
of right-doing and wrong-doing,
there is a field, I’ll meet you there.”

We are for peace.   But those in power in Israel and in Iran do not want peace. 

They are itching for war.

At the beginning of the Iranian revolution, the new regime in Tehran tried in vain to dissuade Iranians from celebrating this ancient feast, exhorting them to concentrate more on Islamic feasts.

It was no use. People fiercely resisted such policies and ended up celebrating Nowruz even more enthusiastically.

A day after this year’s Nowruz, on March 20th, a beloved artist/singer passed away from cancer in Maryland. He was seventy-eight years old. His name was Faramarz Aslani. We, the generation from before the Iranian revolution, grew up with his music, a mix of Spanish guitar and Persian melancholic lyrics.

Aslani, like so many singers who did not fit the new regime’s definition of culture, left Iran for England and eventually emigrated to the U.S. He continued to sing. His voice was deep, warm, and passionate, sometimes sad.

At the beginning of the Revolution, like so many artists and intellectuals, he was for change, not knowing what the future had in store. He sang a song depicting the struggle against the former regime in favor of the people’s movement. But soon, like so many he became disillusioned. His songs were forbidden and called taghouti, a Quranic term describing anything tyrannical and commonly used for the shah’s regime.

Yet, the youth in Iran still enjoyed his music and would listen clandestinely.

Over the years, things changed. I vividly remember that on one of my last trips to Iran, a large gathering of men and women and youngsters was held on the grounds of the Borj Milad in Tehran.

Faramarz Alsani’s music filled the air.

Aslani held concerts with other famous singers in cities with a high concentration of Iranian expatriates such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. He was revered not just as a musician but as a fine human being who truly cared about his country and his people.

“Faramarz Aslani Feat. Dariush: Age Ye Rooz | داریوش و فرامرز اصلانی: اگه یه روز | Official Video”

He started a tour in the U.S. in 1992 at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. received by an enthusiastic crowd, he said, “These songs are from all the sweet and bitter memories of my life.”

A year later, he finished an album called Hafez, A Memorandum, which consisted of eight poems by Hafez, Iran’s most famous mystical poet.

In 2010, he released another album titled, The Third line (Khatte Sevvom).

Yet, his song, Age Ye Rooz, (if you go on a trip one day), became the signature song of nostalgia for many Iranians, evoking the past, a different era.

Like so many before him, Faramarz Aslani died in exile, far away from his homeland, where he had grown up and had learned to love and compose music.

He became a journalist in London, but it was always his music and his songs that remained.

He is gone now leaving behind a legacy. The many tributes on social media are filled with his music, remembering a legend that died a day after Nowruz.

Adieu Mr. Aslani….

When the subject of Iran and America comes to mind, two eventful episodes are often invoked by Iranians and Americans. The first is the CIA-led coup d’état of 1953, which toppled Mohammad Mossadegh’s democratically elected government; and the second is the taking of American hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution.

On more than one occasion, U.S. presidents and diplomats have apologized to Iran for America’s interference in the country, yet the Islamic Republic has never taken responsibility for keeping American diplomats and personnel for 444 days in captivity.

Both these two events have left a lasting scar on the history of relations between the two countries.

But things are not that simple. Relations weren’t always contentious.

There was a time when America and Iran had in fact a good relationship and we are not referring to the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

The history of the relations between the two nations goes back to the early nineteenth century, as it is presented in a new book called Heroes to Hostages: America and Iran, 1800-1988 published by Cambridge University Press, 2023, and authored by Dr. Firouzeh Kashani Sabet, the Walter Annenberg Professor of history at U. Penn and the newly elected President of the Society of Iranian Studies.

This informative, well written and well researched work takes us back to the 1830’s, to the first encounter between the two nations. It was an amicable relationship, mostly involving the work of American Presbyterian missionaries in Iran. It was to benefit both people.

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Heroes to Hostages America and Iran, 1800–1988. Click Here.

There was no oil, there were no coups, no White Revolution, no arms sales, no military advisors, no Kennedy or Nixon doctrines and no hostage taking. Unlike Iranians’ history of suspicion towards the British, they did not share the same view towards America or Americans’ role in Iran until 1953.

Instead, there were missionaries, Perkins, Graham Wilson, Howard Baskerville, Morgan Shuster, and the Peace Corps.

In 1833, the first missionary, the Reverend Justin Perkins, set foot in Iran and spent some 8 years in the country preaching to about 140,000 Nestorian Christianss. He noted, “No American was ever a resident of that ancient and celebrated country before me” (page 17). Among other things he did, was using a printing press in Urumiyeh, in northern Iran to make the Scriptures available to all. In an act of compassion, from Ohio, contributions were sent to Iran to alleviate the suffering of famine victims in Iran. The missionaries were also involved in other work, including the establishment of schools and medical centers in Hamadan, Tabriz and Tehran.

Although in most cases, the missionaries were left alone by the local government, as many of the officials’ sons were also being educated there, there were instances when governors forbade the participation of Muslims as was the case of classes held by a Reverend A. R. Blankett.

In an unfortunate incident, a missionary by the name of Benjamin Woods Labaree was killed by Kurdish bandits. His murderer was later found and sentenced to life in prison.

Of course, the name Howard Conklin Baskerville is no stranger to Iranians. He was a missionary who decided to join the nationalists after the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. As a young man, he fought alongside them and died at the age of twenty- four on April 19, 1909.

He is buried in Tabriz where his tomb is visited by many Iranians and tourists. Before he died, he had declared, “I am Persia’s.” (page 74)

Another well-known American was William Morgan Shuster, a banker from New York, who in 1911, was engaged by the Iranian government to put the country’s fiscal house in order. Even though he was at times frustrated with the authorities, he applauds the Iranians for their sacrifices in trying “to change despotism into democracy.”

In his well-known book, The Strangling of Persia, he wrote: “It was obvious that the people of Persia deserve much better than what they are getting, that they wanted us to succeed, but it was the British and the Russians who were determined not to let us succeed.”

An American Society was formed in 1925 to promote commerce and exchange in art and literature between the two nations. Among the historians who visited Iran was Arthur Upham Pope (he is buried with his wife along the Zayandeh Rud in Isfahan) who gave a talk about Persian art with Reza Shah being in attendance. At the same time, in 1926, a statesman, Seyed HasanTaghizadeh had been Iran’s representative in Philadelphia exposition and spent time in America.

In early 1936, a Thomas R. Gibson came to Iran to direct the Iranian scouting program. Reza Shah who had crowned himself as the first king of the Pahlavi dynasty, having rapid modernization in mind, embarked on the forced unveiling of Iranian women. An American minister to Iran, William Hornibrook had deducted that Reza Shah’s top-down secular reforms, had alienated many Iranians, especially the clergy. (page 121)

In her comment to me, Dr. Kashani Sabet says: “I think the social work was important, yes. When missionaries provided medical support to the poor, especially poor women it was valuable. The peace corps also stepped in during the 1968 earthquake. These types of interventions and support ] were helpful. Unfortunately, the broader context of Western and US imperialism and later the Cold War were framing this involvement and relationship, which politicized it and made it easy to erase any good that might have come from it.”

The name Samuel Jordan who became the director of the famous Alborz college, established previously in 1873, comes to mind. (Alborz was later re- named the American College). Many others Americans become instrumental in creating good will, including the dozens of Peace Corps volunteers, some of whom fell in love with the country and its culture and later upon returning, become major academics of Iran. Among them was Ambassador John Limbert who became a hostage for 444 days.

Other Americans or American actions in Iran leave a sour taste:

Personalities like general Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., the man who assisted with the organization of the Iranian gendarmerie (father of the famous son and commander of the coalition forces in Operation Desert Storm) and then Kermit Roosevelt, Donald Wilbur (both involved in the coup) and Richard Helms ( the ex-CIA chief and later U.S.ambassador to Iran).

The book examines the CIA/MI6 coup like so many other books have covered. Suffice to say, that Dr Kashani Sabet examines this event like all academics as a turning point in the negative way which affected the relationship between the two nation .

The coup d’etat toppling a beloved Prime Minister and his government left a lasting mark on the Iranian psyche.

On November 15, 1953, Vice President Nixon representing Eisenhower, whose administration was complicit in the 1953 Coup, comes to Iran to pay tribute to the Shah. On December 9 of that same year, massive protests take place at Tehran University were three students are killed.

The law of capitulation was one that both Dr. Mossadegh and the clergy objected to which gave amnesty to Americans who committed crimes in Iran. In 1964, the Iranian parliament ratified a law giving immunity to members of the military missions and their dependents. This unfair law was one of the first which was dismantled by the revolutionary government in 1979.

In the 1960’s and 70’s, the Shah, whose reign was always shadowed by a coup, purchases vast number of arms, including F 16’s, and AWACKS.

He becomes the gendarme of the region.

Western influence including a sexual revolution takes place.

Discos and miniskirts take root in a very religious society. The Shah and his entourage are pro-American. Iranian cinema except on seldom cases showed semi-nude women. SAVAK whose creation is aided by the CIA starts as an intelligence apparatus but later becomes a tool of torture of dissidents including leftists and religious elements.

Ali Shariati, the famous Iranian sociologist writes, why should we not know about someone like Angela Davis but instead we must be aware of Miss Twiggy! (Page 327)

In between the years, a lot of investments are made by U.S. companies and other western companies. Some helped develop the country but mainly it was intended to make Iran into a client state.

But how much any of these developments and modernization help the Shah and his regime sustain its rule? Perhaps they did superficially but on a deeper level they did not.

The 1978-1979 events in fact shattered the illusion of the “Island of peace and stability.”

The 1979 revolution was blamed on Jimmy Carter since most Iranians do blame foreigners for their fate. Was it right? Not by any factual account. Not always.

Gary Sick, the national security advisor to President Carter, said in an interview that there was no reason the President wanted to rid of the Shah. He was our ally, and he protected our interests. Carter was busy with the Camp David accord and thus the news coming from Iran was not alerting to him as both his Ambassador (Sullivan) and the Shah himself had assured the U.S. administration that all things were in control.

Well, they were not. The Shah was too sick and he had hidden his fatal illness to everyone. The CIA had no knowledge of it.

The Shah could not make the right decisions in the most turbulent period. He asked General Huyser for advice. His Iranian advisors were also incompetent. Alam, his court jester, had died.

And then the hostage take-over takes place which completely put Iran and America at odds.

The rest is history as we say.

The cover of this book is a 1943 photo of Mrs. Louis Dreyfus, the wife of the U.S. minister to Iran giving food to Iranian children.

There are other interesting illustrations, among them, the Fiske seminary students (women) in 1900, Angela Davis in Zaneh Rouz, (woman of today), various comic drawings in the famous Towfigh satirical monthly illustrating the Roger Plan and a photo of demonstrations holding banners of “Yankee Go Home”. ( page 203)

The image of three girl scouts with their short hair in 1936 is noticeable, a far cry from the images of forced veiled women after 1980.

This book, unlike other books on this very subject, is not only elegantly written, but draws the reader to a more intense and detailed history of the U.S./ Iran relations, many aspects of which remain little known to us.