Iranian delusion and the American war machine | The Indian Express

Iranian delusion and the American war machine | The Indian Express

Written by Ramin Jahanbegloo |Published: May 20, 2019 1:38:39 am

The writer is Noor-York Chair in Islamic Studies, York University, Toronto.

Iranian delusion and the American war machine

The million-dollar question is: How can Iran defuse one of this era’s most serious crises?

Despite increasing pressures and threats, there is no indication from the various statements by Iranian officials that Tehran is preparing itself for an attack from the US. (Illustration: C R Sasikumar)

“Should we negotiate with Iran’s ayatollahs?” This is a question which was put by Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, to Bernard Lewis, the British-American historian of the Middle East. “Certainly not!” came Lewis’s uncompromising response. It looks like the overall stance of the Trump Administration goes in the direction of Lewis’s general doctrine for the future of Iran and the Middle East. Lewis died a year ago, on May 19, 2018, but his influence among the American statesmen and strategists has not decreased. As a matter of fact, in his obituary for Lewis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote: “I owe a great deal of my understanding of the Middle East to his work. He was also a man who believed, as I do, that Americans must be more confident in the greatness of our country, not less.”