Live Blog: Hamid Dabashi on Iran and America

Hamid Dabashi just finished the opening remarks of the of the first panel at the Columbia conference on Iran.

He began with a jab at Columbia President Lee Bollinger who, according to Dabashi, was somewhat responsible for two of his graduate students packing up and fleeing Iran this past summer. As Dabashi noted, the Iranian tabloids had accused Columbia as being the American home of the so-called “Velvet Revolution” in Iran. Bollinger’s comments two years ago in his introduction of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad certainly did not help in allaying the fears of the Iranian regime.

Dabashi noted, there is nothing about Iran that will be said today that will not be immediately relevant to the United States. In other words, as Dabashi said, this is not about “us versus them.” Let’s see.