Esfandyar Batmanghelidj is an opinion columnist. His column Institution Rules runs alternate Thursdays.
Lanbo Zhang is an associate opinion editor and is interrogating Yar about yesterday's column Chinooks and Crannies. Interrogating him the way an enemy of the state deserves to be interrogated!
Lanbo: You really wouldn't fight for America if there was a war against Iran?
Yar: I guess that is the big question. My gut reaction tells me that I would avoid fighting by all reasonable means.
Lanbo: Ok. Fine. But if you had to choose, Iran or the US. In a war.
Which would it be?
Yar: The whole point is that I can't choose. Iran over the US, US over Iran. God willing they will never have to enter conflict. I'll put it this way, choosing Iran over the US would betray the fact that the US is the country that has provided me what I have. But Iran provides me with who I am...
Lanbo: What do you mean?
You've never been there.
How many people do you even know in Iran?
Yar: A handful at best. But that’s not the point.
You have to consider that the cultural inputs, the identity inputs, the food inputs (yums) I got throughout my childhood were a hybrid of American, Iranian, and European traits.
Cut the Iranian out and you starve the soul... not to get too poetic.
