Amateur Megalomania

A Conversation With An Iranian-American

February 14th, 2007 | by Todd W |

Monday, while taking a coffee break in the afternoon, I was joined by a colleague (and someone I consider a friend) who happened to be an Iranian-American.  I don’t have permission to use his name, so he will remain anonymous here.

My friend has had an interesting life.  He was in Iran during the revolution, and participated in it with the hope that democracy and freedom would come from it.  When it turned into an Islamic revolution, his dream fell apart.  He’s had relatives executed for standing opposed to the government.  His father died a few years ago, leaving him as heir to an apartment complex in Tehran, but he is unable to return, even for the funeral.  His contact with his mother is limited, and he thinks he’ll never be able to return even for a visit.

He arrived in Canada with $10 in his pocket, fluency in French, and a distant friend living in the same city (Vancouver).  He told me of walking up and down the streets, stopping at every single business until he got the most basic of jobs washing dishes.  After a little while of watching the cook do his job, he presented himself as a cook to another business and worked his way up.  Today he is a well-paid Quality Professional at a major Pharmaceutical company.  He is a Canadian citizen, and is in the middle of becoming an American.

He has converted to Catholicism and is married (to a Canadian) with a one year old baby.

I lay all of that out to give you a perspective on the man.  Here is someone who has embraced the West and has a lot of knowledge of Islam, the Sunni-Shi’a situation, and the general political climate of Iran.

I can’t emphasize how much I appreciated our coffee-break-turned-two-hour-talk.

Unfortunately, I came away from it completely distressed.

As I’ve written in nauseating detail, I had approached our efforts in Iraq with an optimism and a real desire to see a free people with an opportunity to take a better path than radical extremism and brutality.  I know most of the anti-war people think I’m an idiot for that, but I honestly believed in the idea that all people would choose freedom if give the chance.  The events in Iraq have devestated my optimism, and I’ve been left with an uncomfortable emptiness regarding the future prospects of the West when facing militant Islam.

My friend’s take did nothing to improve my feelings.

Prior to the war, I heard what was to me an offensive idea put forth by a lot of people - Arabs (and Persians) simply were not capable of being free in the Western sense of the word.  That perspective suggested a bigotry that ran counter to my fundamental view of people.  Of course freedom was a human birthright, and in the absence of oppression, it would be possible to bring people to a better place.

Imagine my surprise when my friend reinforced this idea.  He feels the people in that region simply can’t be free the way the West would like.  He pointed out that under Saddam, the Shi’a-Sunni schism was held down.

I find that solution hard to accept - Saddam killed and raped his way through the Iraqi population, stocking a quarter of a million people into unmarked graves, yet we’re supposed to accept this barbarism as the price of peace?  A native Middle-Easterner is telling me the only way to keep the Middle-East quiet is to place a savage boot on the neck of the people.

We talked about the rights of women in Islam (or lack of).  He related conversations with his wife and her disbelief that a woman would submit to such restrictions.  While he doesn’t agree with the treatment, he says that the women are used to it, so to them it isn’t a big deal.  Why should America or anyone else disturb the situation when the people are acclimated to the condition?

I can’t accept that either.  This same argument implies that black slavery wasn’t a big deal, because the slaves were born and bred in captivity and were used to the condition.  Why stir up a great big war over something like that?

I can’t follow the logic there.

My friend paints a bleak picture.  During the Iranian Revolution, he saw the wrong men seize control and turn it into a holy cause.  What if a power had been present to keep those men from perverting that revolution?  What if they had been given a chance to see it through the way they had intended?  Was that worth anything?

Because that’s what we tried to do.  We knocked off one thug, only to see ten more try to grab those reigns.  The reasonable response seems to be an aggressive policy of making sure people committed to pluralism and freedom retain power in Iraq.  Maybe such a tack in Iran back in the day could have helped.

Not so, says my friend.  Western values are hopeless over there, and we shouldn’t interfere.  The bloodshed and butchery can only be held in check by an organic dictator, native to the region, and feared by the people.

I’m constantly amazed when people who spend a lot of time bashing nations for human rights abuses also bash America when we try to do something to put a stop to these abuses.  It seems to be a no-win situation.  Sure, the natural resources of Iraq are vitally important to us and the world, and that’s one of the reasons we went in, but a free, Westernized Iraq is good for Iraq AND the USA.  Are the efforts to improve lives to be rejected because we might also benefit from stability in the region?

My friend says the Middle East can’t be free.  He says they aren’t capable.  Yet he sits before me in a free nation, successful and prosperous under that same system.

Had I ever ventured the idea that any particular race was less capable, the very same political movement that reviles our efforts would have condemned me for naked racism.

My mild-mannered friend, soft spoken and gentle, labels our government as evil, and our President as a vile man bent on Imperial Conquest.  I point out that if all we wanted was the Iraqi oil, why are we spending all of this time and money trying to secure areas of the country that don’t impact oil production?  Why have we not simply cordoned off the oil regions and let the rest go straight to hell?  If the US government is really an evil, Imperialist force, why waste resources on infrastructure improvement?

There is no penetrating the hate layer.

I understand that people hate Bush.  I’m tremendously disappointed by him.  I enter into conversations all the time that suddenly become festivals of hatred for Bush and anyone who possibly supported him.  I hear statements about Bush supporters being anything from monstrous idiots to actively evil sub-humans (what does that make me?).  I’m dealing with the fact that people I consider friends seem to privately think I’m damaged in some way.

I hate that, but I can deal with it.

The greater issue, to me, is obscurement.  The very real issues of a nuclear Iran, an increasingly capable and militant Islam, and the overwhelming demographic tides in Europe are diluted by a naked fury at a President.  No rational conversation can be had.  I think the most conversationally dangerous thing you can do today is state your vote in the 2004 election to someone you don’t know.

I left the conversation with such an overwhelming sadness, I wanted to crawl into a hole.  Religious butchery seems impossible to confront.  Civilized people have either written off any prospect of ending the violence, or bitterly oppose or distrust any effort on the part of the West to find a way to fix it.  The Isolationist idea of minding our own business carries a lot of strength, despite the realities of a shrinking world and proliferation of menacing technology.

And no meaningful conversation can occur without framing everything with an eye to the next electoral cycle.

I read recently where someone called for a complete Democratic sweep in 2008, putting them completely, 100% into undeniable control of the country.  Maybe then they would get on-board with facing these issues.  I don’t think things are going to improve until the other side owns the issue.  Until then, the hatred will flow, and the fundamental mistrust of anything down by a man with an ‘R’ next to his name will block us from any progress.

But, of course, the moment that happens, the leaders of my side will probably turn it right around and break out the long knives.

At least that aspect of naivety has been burned out of me.

I’ve been beaten down by human nature.  I was stupid enough to believe better things of people, naive enough to trust men who wanted to try a new way of shaping the world, and ignorant enough to think people could actually try to see beyond the horizon and anticipate what will someday come.

I’m not evil.  I still think trying what we did was worth it.  I’m bitterly upset with the way it was botched, and it kills me to think that future attempts to free people from oppression are now impossible, all because of the failures of a handful of men.

The constancy of barbarism is a lesson I don’t want to learn.  Funny how hopeful optimism has lumped me in with vile villainy.

I can live with that, even though it pains me to see others assume dark things about what I believe.  I can live with it, but I lack the enthusiasm to defend myself anymore.