Iran got to be a demon in American eyes by first being too much of a darling. The Kennedy White House used to refer to the suit-and-tie oil-exporting Shah of Iran as “our kind of Shah.” He owed his job to the CIA, and came to seem more ours than Iran’s when the orthodox mullahs of a fanatical Islam rose up and took their country back in 1979-and seized our American embassy for 444 days-long enough to make Ted Koppel a TV star for his nightly reports on the humiliation of “America Held Hostage.”
It’s six of our presidential campaigns in the past now, but the hostage memories trigger all the other bad “Death to Satan” stuff: the veiled women, the unveiled theocracy, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Yet in the private spaces of Iran, reporter Elaine Sciolino finds a lot of old Persia and yet another emailing, sensual, gabby Iran, tumbling toward a robust Islamic democracy. Iran behind the mosaic of mirrors is this hour on The Connnection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Elaine Sciolino, author of “Persian Mirrors: the Elusive Face of Iran” and New York Times reporter.