American officials - without any trace of irony - label Iran as militaristic, aggressive, expansionist, interventionist, even as hegemonic and imperialistic. The media often echo this, depicting Iran as a cross between the Persian Empire and the Third Reich, aspiring to re-establish a Pax Iranica across the region. Neoconservatives go further, claiming that Iran 'declared war' on the US in 1979; that the two are in a 'life and death struggle'; that this is World War Four (the Cold War was World War Three); and that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at the head of an Islamofascist movement out to re-create the early Caliphate.

LRB 6 November 2008 | PDF Download