There’s too much being said and not enough being considered - but because some part of me expects some other part of me to have an opinion about Iran and America because I am Iranian and American, I will share one quick thought. America has been in conflict with Iran as long as I’ve been alive, and so, I have been in conflict as long as I’ve been alive. My whole life, no one in the public eye seemed to want to acknowledge the history of deceptive reliance between these two countries, instead it was so much easier to simply label the other as the enemy. I found a bizarre numbness, dare I say, a comfort, in listening to as many early morning podcasts or reading as many late night wikipedia entries as I could to learn about the strange political stasis between my home and my parents homeland. Pre-1979 there was hope on both sides that some kind of mutually beneficial relationship between nations could be established. Post-1979 the leaders of both countries realized how valuable it could be to hate each other. And so we all went to sleep for years, knowing we were the good ones, and warning our children of the bogeymen across the way. Confusing as it was, for us, for them, for anyone in between, we got used to it. I got used to it.
But the killing of Soleimani was a jolt to the system. The coverage of the political assassination and propagandized funeral was a reminder that the war-mongering that has become a decades old white noise machine could still stutter and spit, the bogeyman could cough and rise and morph into a very real terror in a very real world. When the Iranians retaliated with the missile strikes, I couldn’t sleep, the bogeymen felt too close, but for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking of all the people in Iraq and Iran in harm's way. All those helpless people who might soon die because their parents never left. So I called mine. They were grateful that I called, even if it took a simultaneous international and identity crisis to get me to do so. We talked for longer than we have in a long time. Finally I asked them how they felt. My mom, who grew up in Tehran and now lives in Texas as a charter flight attendant, tells me she is flying thousands of nervous servicemen to the middle east over the next few weeks and her heart is breaking for them. She wants to be able to fly them all back home happy and healthy. My dad, who long ago served mandatorily in the Iranian military and later built a retail business in Arizona, tells me the US air force men he employed were the hardest working and most generous people he’s ever met. My brain stops thinking of things to say next. I am silent. It is unusual behavior for me. My dad senses this and decides to say “Baba, anywhere you go, the sky is the same color. Politicians only care about money and power. But people are people. And people are good.” So please, as the politicians reprise their favorite song about the bogeymen across the way, please remember, bogeymen aren’t real. People are real. People are complex. People are nervous. People are generous. People are helpless. And people are good.