ISRAEL says Iran wants to destroy it and uses the charge to justify the war on its reviled foe. Too many American politicians believe also that Iran seeks to destroy their country. American neo-cons from both sides of the fence supporting the war are being increasingly challenged from within their ranks, however. Hillary Clinton-Joe Biden Democrats are opposed from within the group by Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders et al, and the Donald Trump-Pete Hegseth lot are increasingly doubted by the followers of the late Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson from the MAGA Republican cluster.

Like Israel, Americans have pointed to Iranian slogans since the 1979 Revolution that painted the US as ‘shaitan-i-buzurg’, the ‘great Satan’. Israel is considered the ‘small Satan’. Both countries see it as adequate evidence for them to conclude that “Muslim terrorists” of Iran posed an existential threat to them. They hide the truer reason for the cultivated mistrust.

The fact is that since the days of the Shah, Iranians in their material culture have been closer to America than to Europe. The Islamic Revolution did away with Kentucky Fried Chicken but retained the iconic image of Col Sanders peering through his glasses to vend ‘juje kebab’, skewered chicken. Not growing bananas, Iranians still love the fruit as ‘mauz’. It’s also the word India’s Hyderabadis use for banana. The duty-free shop at Dubai airport was a rare such facility selling bananas, targeting Iranian women shoppers mainly who could smuggle the heavily taxed fruit to Tehran under their........

© Dawn