“Every inch of that precious city is Rome and Paris and New York put together, and these barbaric savages go, ‘Oh Isfahan, we just bombed Isfahan’; they don’t even know where Isfahan is.”
Hamid Dabashi, is an American and Iranian professor at Columbia University.
He joined UNAPOLGETIC on this episode to give a scathing critique of US and Israeli adventurism and aggression in Iran and the region. Dabashi rebukes both states for having “absolutely no moral legitimacy” to export either freedom or democracy, especially while Israel continues to carry out a “genocide” in Gaza and the US under Trump cracks down on its own democratic institutions.
The episode also delves into Iran's contemporary history, looking at how the CIA orchestrated coup of Iran’s elected leader allowed the Pahlavi dynasty to reestablish “autocratic” rule in Iran, which led to a popular uprising that paved the way for Ayatollah Khomeini to opportunistically establish Iran’s theocracy that has presided over Iran with a “totalitarian” fist, ever since.
UNAPOLOGETIC is hosted by Ashfaaq Carim
Chapters
00:00 - Intro
02:22 - Israel-US no legitimacy on nuclear bombs
07:08 - Iran belongs to Iranian people
12:33 - US-Israel actions will be remembered
17:06 - The empire’s collapse
21:40 - West’s hypocrisy on Iran
26:55 - Israel’s war on Iran
33:18 - West's history with Iran
38:11 - The 1953 CIA coup
44:20 - Pahlavi and autocracy
49:35 - Khomeini seizes opportunity
55:58 - Iran’s totalitarian theocracy
1:02:41 - Trump and democratic decline
1:10:25 - Freedom as imperial excuse
1:17:04 - Moral clarity from the South
1:24:45 - Final reflections