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.

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?

It is ludicrous to believe that he meant nuclear weapons can be used. It is truly fearful to see how the mainstream media in the west can construct an adversary and that there are so few dissenting voices.

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.

I think there is a general interest in films that deal with contemporary issues. Constructions of Iran, Islam, the Middle East as well as the U.S. itself are also of interest, it seems.

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.

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.