Occidental College Political Scientist Hussein Banai

Take My Word For It: Poutine Is Delicious

Political scientist Hussein Banai is an assistant professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College and the co-author of Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988. He was born in Iran and raised in Tehran and Toronto, Canada. Before participating in a panel on the possibilities of a warmer relationship between the U.S. and Iran, he reflected on some strange inspirations—Charles Dickens’ depiction of the English working class and former Canadian political leader Michael Ignatieff’s massive defeat—in the Zócalo green room.

November 26, 2013

Iran: Love Me, Love Me Not?

Tehran Has Shunned Washington for Over 30 Years. Is the Ice Melting?

by Sarah Rothbard | November 6, 2013

In 1979, George Lewis was an NBC correspondent in Iran covering the hostage crisis. Thirty-four years later and thousands of miles away, at a Zócalo event co-presented by Occidental College …

Sum Up Iran In Two Words

We’re Beyond the Era Of “Great Satan,” “Axis of Evil,” and Other Nasty Nicknames. So What’s a Good Two-Word Description Of Persia Today?

November 4, 2013

Back when relations between the United States and Iran were really bad, not just kind of bad, the Ayatollah Khomeini called the United States the “Great Satan” and a “wounded snake.” Today, …

A Hot Cyber Arms Race and a Thawing Iran

Alec Ross and Afshin Molavi on the Future of Global Geopolitics

Hosted by Anne-Marie Slaughter | October 18, 2013

Alec Ross, former senior adviser on innovation in Hillary Clinton’s State Department, talks with Anne-Marie Slaughter about the great contemporary arms race to see which nation can dominate cyber warfare—as …

The Revolution Iran Missed

Focusing on Ideology, Nuclear Power, and Crushing Its Enemies Has Denied the Nation an Economic Transformation

by Afshin Molavi | October 4, 2013

Iran’s 1979 revolution still reverberates across the world. A revolution in the truest sense, it swept away the old order, delivered a new one, reordered regional and global geopolitics, and …

Who Knew My Canadian Friend Was Hiding Hostages?

Ben Affleck’s Gripping Argo Takes Me Back to Iran in 1979

by George Lewis | October 16, 2012

On November 4, 1979, Iranian Islamic radicals overran the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and captured the diplomatic personnel inside, kicking off a crisis that would last 444 …

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