Hence, when some members of the Iranian diaspora, especially women at the moment, use different tropes including the trope of the veil and the issue of gender to construct an image of oppression or to describe the 'silenced' Iranian woman, western intellectuals, policymakers, and publishing houses are all quick to introduce them as presenters of the authentic Iranian experience.

There is no need for historical research. The war didn't take place a thousand years ago. Over a million Iranians served at one time or another in the war fronts and most of them are living ordinary lives today and are available for interviews. These stories are largely unknown in Iran and when I tell them to my friends or students they usually laugh.

Also, as a result of the involvement of American foundations that have backing from the U.S. State Department in Iranian internal politics, cultural exchange and dialogue have become more and more problematic.

In my opinion, the continued popularity of these gross distortions of Iran in the U.S. seems to reveal more about certain aspects of America than about Iran. It seems that the popularity of these memoirs is largely due to the fact that, while claiming to do the opposite, they regularly reinforce the dominant representations of Iran in America by constructing an exotic, backward, and barbaric Iran principally based on U.S. archives.

Post World War II America draws a great deal of interest, but the students also seem to know quite a bit about American exceptionalism and its historical roots.

By dehumanizing others, among many other things, these people are also aiding the neocons and other forces of darkness to justify more war, more suffering, and more destruction.

I was born in the U.S. Why should anyone who has an unfavorable view of the American government renounce his or her citizenship? Why don't its supporters relinquish their citizenship first?