Here is what happened to me in Tehran in 2016.  

It was our first morning in the country and you can’t get the currency in Europe before travelling there. We found a bank and I explained that we wanted to get some Euros converted. The clerk told me his branch didn’t do that and explained that I’d have to go to a bureau de change some distance away. When I asked how to get there, he said it was too far to walk and he gave me the taxi fare out of his own wallet. 

That was my introduction to Iran. Could you imagine the same thing happening anywhere else? Could you imagine an Iranian being treated this way in Europe or the United States. As I’ll describe later, he wasn’t some especially kindly eccentric.  

Now that Benny Gantz has revived “axis of evil” in a New York Times piece to consolidate support for war against Iran it’s important to stand against the dehumanisation of a people which is the precursor to slaughtering them. 

This sort of solidarity isn’t the same as supporting a state’s policies either at home or abroad. The Iranian government is the heir to a successful counter-revolution in which reactionary Islamists defeated and then murdered the left. However, it is up to the people of Iran to bring down the clerical misogynists and every few years they demonstrate a willingness to do just that, most recently in the protests that followed the police murder of Mahsa Amini. 

Iran is not the North Korean style country of the unending hostile descriptions. I was able to travel everywhere independently as freely as one could anywhere in Europe. The Irish passport more than once got the response “Ireland. Bobby Sands” and everywhere people were keen to strike up conversations, partly because they were intrigued by a couple of foreigners choosing their country for a holiday and partly because they wanted to practise their English or French. French is popular with people who hope to emigrate to Canada, and we were even invited into an adult French class where we were rewarded with cakes. In fact, taking shelter in from the rain in a bakery while waiting on a taxi we were given free cakes.  

Always and everywhere we were warmly welcomed and treated with kindness. The only exception was the cop who chased me away from the British embassy building where I was posing for my photo under the Bobby Sands Street sign.  

Iran is much more socially liberal than other countries in the region. I was flabbergasted to see condoms being openly sold in corner shops and young men and women socialised freely in public. The government’s Islamism is endured rather than embraced by much of the population and you could see some women pushing the limits of how much hair they were willing to cover, while others were dressed in black from head to toe. You get a good insight into the lives of people who quietly rebel against the official ideology in the recent film My Favourite Cake.  

Back then there was a sense that the sanctions on the country might be coming to an end and some Europeans were starting to invest in the country. It has massive potential as a tourist destination with its history, architecture and cuisine, but it looks like the Americans will never forgive Iranians for overthrowing their stooge shah and refusing to be part of their empire in the region.  

The Iranian governments since the counter-revolution have followed a policy of supporting reactionary, Islamist and secular states and movements. Its support was vital to keeping the butcher Assad in power in Syria and the Houthis are a Yemeni version of the Taliban. Hizbullah are a sectarian blight on Lebanese society. When the Iranian people overthrow their government it will be a day of celebration for socialists, but any aggression from Israel and the United States has to be opposed. They offer nothing but carnage leading to a future resembling Iraq.