Andrew Shi

On Tuesday, Associate Professor of History Salar Mohandesi delivered a lecture entitled “The Israeli-U.S. War on Iran: A Longer History.” Before a packed room in Searles Hall, Mohandesi offered a historical perspective on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, focusing on themes of imperialism, sovereignty and democracy in Iran’s history.

Mohandesi began by describing the causes of the current conflict as a fulfillment of historical animosity.

“I think this war may come as a surprise, but as a historian of imperialism, I have to say it’s not inconceivable to me that this has happened,” he said. “I’m not saying that this war is inevitable. This is a war of choice, but there are clear historical reasons why we arrived at a place where that choice was made.”

One of these long-established motivators is imperialism, Mohandesi explained.

“We have to start by recognizing the centrality of imperialism to Iran,” he said. “Now, Iran was never Cuba or Algeria or India, but it was subject to imperial domination. This was most visible in terms of territorial losses. Over the course of the 19th century, the British and Russian Empires annexed what had once been Iranian territory, reducing it to the shape that you see now.”

Despite a brief revolution in 1905 that created a constitutional monarchy, imperial interests took hold again in 1908 with the Anglo-Russian Convention, which carved Iran into separate spheres of influence.

This chaos led to the rule of strongman Reza Khan, who seized power and established the Pahlavi dynasty, an absolute monarchy that would rule Iran until 1979. Mohandesi highlighted how Reza Khan adopted an unlikely strategy to combat foreign intervention.

“[Reza Khan] promised to save Iran from Western imperialism, but his strategy was to adopt Westernization, become like the West. The way to become strong and independent [was] to copy what the West is doing,” he said.

According to Mohandesi, Iran and the United States became unlikely allies.

“The U.S. needed reliable bulwarks against communism, and Iran seemed to be the ideal place to erect a sort of pro-U.S. capitalist outpost,” Mohandesi said. “[Iran] possessed the single most important resource in the Cold War: oil. It was strategically located right on the southern border of the USSR.… It was led by an anti-communist monarch who was eager to collaborate with the United States.”

Focusing on the 1953 American-backed coup, which deposed prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, the use of the dollar as the reserve currency and Iranian purchases of U.S. weapons, Mohandesi highlighted how allyship quickly became a disguise for control. The U.S.-backed Pahlavi regime’s brutality and corruption sparked anti-Shah and anti-Western sentiment among the Iranian people, catalyzing the Iranian Revolution and the eventual emergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“Some Iranians loved U.S. involvement, but many others interpreted U.S. involvement as imperialism, with the U.S. eventually coming to personify imperialism in general,” Mohandesi said. “The struggle for Iranian sovereignty increasingly took the form of anti-Americanism and eventually revolution. The Islamic Republic of Iran did not come out of nowhere. It was born out of a popular revolution, and this sheds a lot of light on its behavior today.”

The other key historical factor Mohandesi explored is the relationship between Israel and Iran. He asserted that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s continuous rejection of Zionism, the foundation of the state of Israel, has led to continuous conflict.

“[In 1979], Iran became a threat to Israel. It’s undeniable. This is not because Iran is full of antisemites eager to nuke Jewish people. It is because the Islamic Republic of Iran exposes Israel’s unsettled colonial nature,” Mohandesi said. “It rejects Zionist regional supremacy, and it actively aids armed groups fighting Israel. Zionism was always demanding that everyone recognize Israel’s right to exist. The Islamic Republic’s response is that Israel should not exist.”

Answering an audience question, Mohandesi commented on the larger geopolitical implications of the current war. Besides the economic and trade repercussions, which could last years, according to Mohandesi this war also marks a paradigm shift in the global order.

“I think the stakes of this war are enormous,” he said. “It’s not just that Trump is saying wants to eradicate Iranian civilization. The standing of the United States as a hegemonic force is in question. The standing of Israel as a state is in question. I think the role of Europe and its alliance with the United States is in question.”

Attendee Mico Carpiniello ’29 appreciated the context the lecture provided.

“Learning about the American legacy of imperialism in Iran really helped me contextualize the conflict and understand the Iranian perspective better,” Carpiniello said. “[Mohandesi] did an excellent job with that, and I left with a fuller picture than what I’d seen in the news.”