Caught in Middle of U.S.-Iran Tensions
He’s a guy named Moe. He’s an engineer at Honeywell, has a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old and coaches both their soccer teams in Laguna Niguel, which is about as American suburban as it gets.
But because Moe is short for Mohammed and because Moe Banafti is Iranian by birth, life in these United States is not as idyllic as it might seem. Not that he came complaining to me; I reached him through another contact to get his assessment of what Americans know -- really know -- about that part of the world. It seemed a valid question, given that the U.S. government asked thousands of people from some of those countries last week to register -- and, in so doing, caused a major flap with the large Iranian population in Southern California.
Turns out Moe Banafti, 44, has lots to say -- all delivered in measured, philosophical tones and, at times, with more than a tinge of sadness.
“It’s like having two parents and the two of them are going at it,” he says of U.S.-Iranian ties. “If you’re in the middle, you’re watching, and you’re pretty much torn.”
He sees opportunities for the United States to improve relations with Iran but wonders if it will happen. His doubts stem from my asking how much his fellow Americans (he’s a citizen) know about his homeland. During his 27 years in America, Banafti has concluded we don’t know a whole lot and that our education probably started in 1979, when Americans were taken hostage in Tehran.
The harm in that knowledge gap, he says, “is that those who set policy do it in the name of the average citizen and in the name of the ideals the citizens believe in.” If the U.S. public isn’t fully informed, with a textured understanding of how Iranians or Middle Easterners see the history of U.S. policy in that region, it can’t help shape the U.S. response abroad, he says.
Having said that, he knows how tough it is to keep up or even to catch up on history. “The way life is structured in the U.S.,” he says, “doesn’t accord people that opportunity -- as neighbors, friends, teammates, co-workers -- to delve into it. It takes time, plus there are so many contradictory sources of information.”
Banafti wonders how many Americans know, for example, the various reasons that compelled Iranians to immigrate to the United States -- it wasn’t just the revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed shah, but also the internal strife and war with Iraq that followed. These events are part of the fabric of Iranians’ modern-day views of America, Banafti says.
He points to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s belated apology to Eastern Europeans for their oppression or former President Clinton’s apology to African Americans for past injustices.
That kind of talk -- apologizing, for instance, to the Iranian people for past intervention in internal matters -- would go a long way in Iran, he says.
Banafti says he wasn’t surprised or outraged by the U.S. efforts to review the status of Iranians in America. “To be honest, I expected it to be a little bit worse,” he says. American officials fear another terrorist attack and, unsure of how to keep the country secure, are trying everything, he says.
But that’s another subject, and Banafti thinks even those recent missteps could be minimized if the American public got more engaged. If only.
He’s not holding his breath that Americans will overcome their lack of understanding of other countries. “I have grown to accept it,” he says. “It used to bother me a lot. I would think about it a lot. I found out I can only deal with it one day at a time. I can only talk to so many people in a day, week or month. I’ll probably go to my grave with this issue still outstanding.”
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.
