While the huge protests in Iran were in full swing, I was in Birmingham, Alabama visiting the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. I was struck by the idea that police chief Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor’s response to the civil rights protests in Birmingham bore some similarity with how the Islamic regime was dealing with the protests [...]
We are in the “end times” or so goes the thinking of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It’s important to understand this because this thinking influences his foreign policy, and this is what the U.S. is dealing with and why Iran’s program to develop nuclear weapons is such a threat.
To understand him and the ideas of the ruling Shi’ite [...]
To understand the situation in Iran today and the difficulties of U.S. relations with Iran, it helps to look at the role the U.S. played during the Shah’s regime and why the regime, which appeared strong, collapsed like a house of cards. The Shah’s “White Revolution” and the Nixon Doctrine are important to the story. [...]
In 1953, the U.S. along with the British engineered the overthrow of the democratically-elected Mossadeq government. Almost every Iranian remembers this, but very few Americans do.
In my last post, I described the positive role of Americans in the development of modern Iran. This video picks up the story with a look at international relations under [...]
At the time of the Kajar dynasty, the U.S. had very positive relations with Iran, and individual Americans played important roles in the development of Persian nationalism and modern Iran. For example, American land grant colleges were the model for Iranian education. Americans like Dr. Samuel Martin Jordan and Jane Doolittle created a very positive [...]
A critic of President Obama recently stated that he wishes that Obama would stand up to Ayatollah Khamenei as President Reagan did when he made the famous statement: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”. One can certainly understand this person’s wish, especially as it is a very American trait to tell someone off. We are [...]
