One topic which often brings liberals and conservatives together in the U.S. is Iran. There is a general consensus that the Revolution was the embodiment of backwardness and barbarism.

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.

The students often like to talk about movies that they feel are Orientalist like 300 or Babel. They talk a lot about the possibility of U.S. aggression against Iran and the Iranian hostages being held by the U.S. in Iraq.

President Ahmadinejad said that the Zionist state of Israel should no longer exist as a political entity. This has always been the policy of successive Iranian governments such as those of President Khatami and President Rafsanjani.

As a child, I used to feel much more American than Iranian. Like everyone else at school, I pledged allegiance to the flag. However, after returning to Iran, sadly, I learned about a very different America, an America that most Americans have no idea exists. For the first couple of years this was hard to accept, and it was really painful in some ways.

The fact that the American government has formally set aside an enormous yearly budget of nearly $75 million to increase cultural exchanges in order to bring about what it calls "regime change" has muddied the waters and complicated American Studies in Iran more than anything else.

One topic which often brings liberals and conservatives together in the U.S. is Iran. There is a general consensus that the Revolution was the embodiment of backwardness and barbarism.