Episode 41 - The Shah, the Ayatollahs and 74 years of American bullshit in Iran | Hamid Dabashi | UNAPOLOGETIC

“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