Who cares about Iran?

How imperial forces shaped it. As well as recent regional events. And a 1970s satire

Jun 18, 2025

AI-generated figure that shows Iran the way much of the world seems to see it

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The Big Story:

Whatever happens with Iran, it’s striking there isn’t more international sympathy for the country and its hapless people on whom bombs are suddenly falling, while Donald Trump demands “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

At the time of writing, the US president was still pondering whether or not to join Israel’s military action in Iran. After six days, the conflict is taking its toll, with at least 224 dead and more than 1,200 injured in Iran (Israel has reported 24 killed since June 13).

But who cares for Iran?

The only public concern for Iran’s situation from the western world has been expressed by France’s president Emmanuel Macron. He has called for an end to strikes against civilians in Iran and Israel and warned against forcing regime change in Tehran.

China has condemned Israel’s attack as a “violation of international law”, as have Iraq, Oman, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Afghanistan. And that’s it.

These books offer context:

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Iran and Global Decolonisation: Politics and Resistance After Empire

Edited by Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Robert Steele

Publisher: Gingko

Year: 2023

This collection of essays explores Iran's role in global decolonisation movements, while acknowledging the strange dichotomy of its position: “although Iran was not formally colonised, it was subject to various forms of imperialism in the modern period”.

Imperial powers, not least the Ottomans, the Russian empire and Britain often “violated Iran’s sovereignty and and imposed on Iran economically, politically, and militarily”. In 1856, Iran signed an agreement with the US to “minimise the negative impact of Russian and British domination by bringing outside powers into the balance, so that Iran could manoeuvre among them”. But that made Iran even weaker.

Britain had been up to its usual tricks in Iran as in its colonies, giving sweetheart deals to its own. An 1872 agreement for German-born British entrepreneur Paul Julius Reuter (founder of the Reuters news agency) to control all of Iran’s roads, telegraph, factories and mills, public works and natural resources was considered so outrageous it had to be annulled. (Also, other European capitals did not want Britain to hold all the cards.)

Shortly after the Reuter affair, British Major G F Talbot’s peppercorn purchase of a 50-year monopoly of Iran’s tobacco industry united Iranians in huge protests, led by such disparate figures such as a prominent Islamic scholar, a pan-Islamist activist and a London-based diplomat.

It was Anglo-Russian imperial aggression that crushed Iranians’ 1906 revolution against their despotic kings and the effort to establish constitutional rule based on humanism and humanitarianism (adamiyat va insaniyat).

During World War I, despite Iran’s declared neutrality, its territorial integrity was violated. Soon after, in 1921, Reza Khan became the first Shah. The editors write that he was not a British stooge and wanted to make the country stand up to foreign forces. Unfortunately, he was forced out and into exile when World War II broke out. The Shah had declared neutrality and refused to kowtow to the Allies’ demands that all Germans in Iran be expelled. The Soviets and the British invaded and the humiliation of Iran was complete. So much so that even as recently as the rule of the last Shah (son of Reza), who was toppled by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, one of his trusted diplomats Fereydoun Hoveyda “recalled that bars frequented by foreign troops had signs at the entrance that read ‘Iranians and dogs forbidden’.”

Iranian-American historian Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet notes in her essay that Iran’s contribution to the global effort during World War II “often appears merely as a footnote in the Western historiography” but it was very significant for Iranians.

She writes: “Iran’s post-war politics became shaped around the humiliating experiences of imperialism and occupation”.

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East

By: Kim Ghattas

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co

Year: 2020

It’s significant the book starts with this quote from the Roman senator Tacitus: “Where they make a wasteland, they call it peace”.

Kim Ghattas, a former BBC and Financial Times correspondent, has offered an insightful portrait of how the modern Middle East has been shaped by three major events in 1979, which “occurred almost independent of one another: the Iranian Revolution; the siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca by Saudi zealots; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the first battleground for jihad in modern times, an effort supported by the United States”.

She notes their continuing destructive influence, not least sectarianism, the culture wars over women’s rights, the frustrated hopes of the so-called Arab spring, the rise of Al Qaida and Islamic State. It is, indeed, “a sprawling tale, a One Thousand and One Nights of modern Middle Eastern politics”.

My Uncle Napoleon

By: Iraj Pezeshkzad

Publisher: Mages

Year: 1973 in Farsi; 1996 in English

It took nearly 25 years for this sharp satire to be translated from Farsi and published in English. Then, in 2006, it was released with a new intro by Azar Nafisi, author of the bestselling Reading Lolita in Tehran.

This novel, which was briefly banned in the Islamic Republic, is considered one of Iran’s modern classics and was a popular TV series.

It’s a wonderful story, incredibly well told. Set in the 1940s when Iran’s political stance was constantly under British scrutiny, the story is told by an unnamed 13-year boy. The title is deliberately comic and illustrates the intense politics of the period. “Dear Uncle Napoleon” (not his real name) regularly recounts his supposedly glorious career of opposition to the English and references Napoleon, whom he greatly admires. Uncle Napoleon becomes increasingly paranoid and when he dies (in a slightly farcical situation) at the end of the novel, his demise is accompanied by what may be seen as another "death" that of the love affair between the teenaged narrator (his nephew) and his daughter Layli (named after the heroine of the Middle East's most renowned romance, Majnun and Layli).

Choice quote:
“It seems that during the reign of Mohammad Ali Shah, Dear Uncle had been in the gendarmerie, with the rank of third lieutenant, and each of us had heard the story of his battles and clashes with bandits and insurgents forty or fifty times. Among we children each of these incidents was distinguished by a certain name; for example, the story of the Battle of Kazerun, the Battle of Mamasani and so on. In the early years, the basis of each incident was a description of a skirmish that had happened in the little town of Kazerun or Mamasani between Dear Uncle, with five or six gendarmes, and a group of insurgents and vagrant thieves. But as time passed the number of enemies and the bloodiness of the conflicts increased.”