Iran, the United States, and Why this War Matters

Why is the US at war with Iran?

Did Iranians come into existence in 1979 and start shouting “Death to America”? 

Iran is one of the most consistently demonized nations in U.S. discourse. U.S. officials, and media, frequently use obscene, dehumanizing, and misleading language with regards to Iran.

This consistent dehumanization helps manufacture consent for policies that have devastated the lives of ordinary Iranians in both Iran and the U.S. U.S. policy towards Iran over the past 47 years has consisted of economic warfare, sabotage, and overt and covert war, with brief interludes of diplomacy.

However, the history of U.S.-Iran interactions is longer than that. 

How did we get here? What is the responsibility of those of us living in the U.S. towards ordinary Iranians and how does endless war affect us?

We will briefly review the history of U.S.-Iran relations in the context of the broader history of the Iranian struggle for sovereignty and attempt to address these questions.

Our main presenter, Bahar Sharafi, is an Iranian-American activist, born in Tehran with family there.   Now living in Dorchester, she is a MAPA board member and co-chair of the MAPA-initiated Stop the US War on Iran committee.  Bahar is a volunteer leader with the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Iranian American Council, and a co-founder of CD8 for Palestine. She spoke on the US-Iran war to 130,000 people at the “No Kings III” rally on Boston Common, March 30.  A second presenter will explain actions you can take and how to get involved.

Bahar is the narrator of the short film “A Glimpse of Iran“, which shares sights, sounds and reflections from her last trip to Iran, and describes what it feels like to live in America while it wages an illegal war on her homeland.