The United States has a long history of interfering in Iranian politics. Perhaps the most famous is the coup of the democratically-elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 followed by the re-installation of the US-friendly brutal shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Since the revolution in 1979, which overthrew the shah and put in place a representative theocratic government, the US has sanctioned Iran and both supported and threatened military attacks. Now, in addition to increased sanctions, Iranians are banned from traveling to the US and US citizens have great difficulty getting visas to visit Iran. We spent nine days in Iran and bring you this interview with Dr. Foad Izadi, a professor who teaches American Studies at the University of Tehran, about the impacts of the sanctions, their state of democracy and how Iranian students view the US and Iran.
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Guest:
Dr. Foad Izadi is a professor at the Faculty of World Studies and the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, University of Tehran. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics and a masters in mass communication studies from the University of Houston, and he is a PhD graduate of mass communications of the Louisiana State University. Izadi has written articles and books on political and international issues, including ” U.S. Public Diplomacy toward Iran: Structures, Actors, and Policy Communities” and “Terrorism and Peace: A Bibliography”.