Iranians and Americans share another trait, historian Reza Alavi once told the Monitor in Tehran.
"As in the American mind, [there is] the same cultural value of success [and] an extreme individualism," said Mr. Alavi, who was educated at Harvard and Oxford. "That's why you find so many Iranians adjust so well to America. When they go there, they are like a fish in water."
And that is not all. Both sides frequently vilify an 鈥渆nemy鈥� in public discourse. In recent decades alone, the US has demonized Panama鈥檚 Manuel Noriega, Somalia鈥檚 Gen. Mohammad Farah Aidid, Yugoslavia鈥檚 Slobodan Milosevic, Al Qaeda鈥檚 Osama bin Laden, Libya鈥檚 Col. Muammar Qaddafi, Iraq鈥檚 Saddam Hussein, and 鈥� a perennial target 鈥� Iran鈥檚 revolutionary leaders.
A similar tradition reigns in Iran, where for two centuries Persians railed against British and Russian scheming. After 1979, a policy of 鈥渘either East nor West鈥� took Iran out of the cold war dynamic, so the West, Soviet Union, and Israel were all vilified.
Special fury was reserved for the US, however, as one ayatollah raged: 鈥淟et America be angry with us, and die of this anger.鈥�
