Travel Journalist Rick Steves on Iran: Smart, Smart Stuff
Everyone knows travel journalist, Rick Steves, but few -- I certainly didn't -- know that he is very political and very smart about the world he covers.
In this interview about his recent travels with Iran, he points out something I had almost forgot. Everything we are told about Iran in this country is propaganda. Yeah, pretty much everything.
No, I'm not saying (neither is Steves) that Iran is Vermont. What he says, what he saw, is a real country with real people with legitimate grievances about America.
'We have to think more carefully about why we are angering so much of the world. I'm just trying to say, Hey, look, we're 4 percent of this planet, we've spent as much as everybody else together on the military, and we've got military bases in 130 countries. Yet only we can declare somebody else's natural resources on the other side of the planet are vital to our national security. Only we can be pissed off if they elect a government that nationalizes their own natural resources.
"When I came home after the most learning 12 days of travel I've ever had in my life, I realized this is a proud nation of 70 million people. They are loving parents, motivated by fear for their kids' future and the culture they want to raise their kids in. I had people walk across the street to tell me they don't want their kids to be raised like Britney Spears. They are afraid Western culture will take over their society and their kids will be sex toys, drug addicts and crass materialists. That scares the heck out of less educated, fundamentalist, small-town Iranians, which is the political core of the Islamic Revolution and guys like Ahmadinejad.
"After all, this is a country that lost a quarter of a million people fighting Saddam Hussein, when Iraq, funded by the United States, invaded Iran. And they remember the invasion like it was yesterday to them. It's amazing: They have a quarter of our population and they lost a quarter of a million people, fighting Hussein. That's a huge scar in their society.
I just feel we underestimate the spine of these people. They will fight and die to defend their values. And their values are not to destroy America and Israel. Their values are to defend their way of life against Western encroachment. Because of recent history, they have grounds to think America threatens them. So it would be dangerously naive to think we could shock and awe them into any kind of submission."We wonder why didn't God give us those resources. I don't know what motivates us to think we've got rights to their natural resources. This is poignant stuff, and a lot of Americans don't want to hear it. But I just want to come home and remind my neighbors that we've got to work with this world. Our military and economy is not strong enough to have a unilateral foreign policy. We're not strong enough to go it alone."
It is a good article. But it omits a key point that you supply (at least in implication): 'Everything we are told about Iran in this country is propaganda. Yeah, pretty much everything.'
In order to change US stance toward Iran, we have to recognize where the anti-Iran sentiment comes from: not spontaneously from ordinary Americans, but rather from carefully orchestrated propaganda from the US government. Yes, Americans tend to be ignorant and incurious about the rest of the world, but they are the victims of deliberate ruling policy to make them malleable.
So we must be careful not to blame the victims; rather, we need to focus on the propagandists, the deceivers, who think god gave them Middle East oil (or Palestinian land). These are the deceivers, the murderers, the war mongers. They must be exposed and thoroughly repudiated.
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March 25, 2011 2:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
American ignorance about the rest of the world is gigantic (well, certainly much bigger than Sarah Palin's wardrobe budget), so some correctives are certainly very much in order. Roger Cohen's recent series was a positive and possibly significant development. Rick Steves, on the other hand, may be a top-notch travel journalist, but this little commentary is on the naive side.
Iran's "Islamic Revolution" was thirty years ago: the average "small-town" Iranian "loving parents" were barely alive then, and certainly not part of the "political core" of the Revolution, whatever that means. Detente with Iran is long overdue, but remember that it took 15 years after detente with the USSR just to get to Gorbachev, and Gorby was not part of an extremist theocracy. Solidly better relations between the U.S. and Iran will require a long period of vulnerable incubation. It is far too early to count eggs, let alone unhatched chickens.
March 21, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Half of the population are under 25, so most Iranians do not even remember the Revolution.
March 21, 2009 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
But according to Rush Limbaugh, they do remember the Reagan Tax Cuts.
March 22, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
And how Raygun balanced the budget, liberated Auschwitz, and personally dismantled the Berlin Wall?
March 23, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good find. We enjoy his show. He proves a good point; we need more Steves in the world.
March 21, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate your bringing this to people's attention MJ, but I don't understand how you, or any other thinking person, can mistake the information we get about Iran here in America since the Shah was deposed as anything but propaganda. That strikes me as almost scary. If people cannot see what we're fed about Iran is propaganda are they completely blind?
Of all the nations in the middle east, Iran is the one nation most predisposed to be an ally of the US but for the long history of meddling, disrespect and subterfuge of the US in Iranian internal affairs. We have threatened them militarily for 30 years now and even had Saddam Hussein fight a proxy war against them on our behalf. Why on earth would anyone wonder why they are afraid of the United States and do not trust our leaders? Hmmmm, let's see...
March 21, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking of propaganda, oleeb, you would do well to examine where you were fed the nonsense about Saddam Hussein fighting "a proxy war" against Iran "on behalf" of the U.S. It is, of course, true that the U.S. under Amiable or Otherwise Dunce Reagan supported Iraq (long after the war had started) but I think you will have difficulty finding an iota of CREDIBLE evidence that the U.S. was involved in Saddam's deciding to invade Iran in September 1980, when Carter was still president. Take care throwing stones in a glass house.
March 22, 2009 5:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
You don't know what you're talking about.
The US encouraged, aided and abetted the illegal war to seize Iranaian oil fields from long before the actual military move was made against Iran. This isn't some secret. It is well documented and well known.
March 22, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Well documented," that's a laugh, oleeb. It isn't on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War ) or any other credible source I've ever seen in the past 30 years years, and I was reading U.S. and international newspapers in 1980 when the war began. If you have "documentation" of the Great Satan Jimmy Carter's plot against Iran using Saddam in 1980, show it. Cite the sources. In any case, I stand by my position that it makes no sense to decry one form of propaganda by espousing an alternate form. We need truth here, not hypocrisy.
March 22, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're kidding right? Wikipedia is what you think of as credible?
I said the United States not Jimmy Carter and it is true. If you are so naive as to believe the well documented US backing of Iraq vs Iran prior to and during that war didn't really happen I just don't know what to tell you. Our support for Saddam's attack on Iran could not have been more open and obvious even at the time. The resources we expended on behalf of the Iraqi war effort were significant to say the least. Perhaps you need a class in how to do research, but I don't have time to teach you. Good day.
March 22, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is "well-documented" but you cannot come up with a single source. Of course Wikipedia has plenty of errors, not all of the minor grammar errors and suchlike, but does not very often completely miss major historical events that are well-documented. Nor does the New York Times, except in rare cases. You want to believe what you want to believe. An ideal candidate for being fed and regurgitating propaganda. Consider yourself outed.
March 22, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS Oleeb, You are trying to fudge your way out of your original ridiculous statement that the Iran-Iraq war was a "proxy war" fought by Saddam on behalf of the U.S. Contrary to your attempted misappropriation in the prior comment, I never said that the U.S. didn't back Saddam AFTER the war started. I said, in fact, the opposite in my first comment above. I do maintain, however, contrary to your "well-documented" but actually non-existent documentation, that the main reason for the war was NOT Saddam acting on "behalf" of the America. Saddam followed his own agenda from his first murder in his home village to his final bit of gallows wit. Again, truth and facts, not propaganda, pro-rightwing U.S. Republican OR pro-Iranian-theocrat, is what is called for, and what we may hope to hear more of from Obama, even if it is far from enough to achieve much of anything.
March 22, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
oleeb, I think you are underestimating two things:
1. The lack of education about international affairs of many Americans.
2. The failure of our mass media to report the truth about the history of the Iran/U.S. relationship in any sort of detail (which is, in part, responsible for #1).
When you have a large number of people who have only seen the propaganda typically offered on the cable channels and the major news networks, misconceptions will be the norm. The history that MJ reported above needs to be repeated again and again, to counter this pernicious environment.
March 21, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand your point and agree insofar as it concerns the population generally, however, my comment was intended to refer to more well informed people like MJ and those who visit TPM regularly. I don't think one would have had to dig far at all during the past 30 years to discover the basic truth about the US/Iran relationship and our bullying, belligerent posture toward that country. That's all.
March 22, 2009 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
The real question is would it make difference to some individuals to know the reason and truth for America's propaganda machine toward Iran.
There will always be those that believe America can do no wrong when it comes to international affairs, provided it benefits America. And I believe we will never reach those hard-liners anymore than we can convince those in Iran of a possibility in the change of policies toward them.
To many nations, the United States is just a bullying nation that ask of most countries to practice what we preach and not as we do.
March 21, 2009 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an interesting article, but here's the problem I have.
I'm reading Juan Cole's new book, and it starts out with a chapter on our foreign policy's obsession with Middle Eastern Oil for the past 50-60 years. For a while, he says, we were mostly staging coups (Iran, Iraq) to protect the flow of oil to our allies in Europe and Japan, against the threat of the Soviets. Then, at some point, Britain finally pulled out as "protector" of the ME, and we took over. GW Bush and crowd.
As Cole says on page 21, "The United States is far more dependent on Islamic oil today than it was 30 years ago. ...[it] need about 12 million barrels a day of petroleum or other liquefied fuels from somewhere else if it is to maintain its present way of life...."
While I agree that we really don't understand how repulsive and threatening to countries like Iran is our pop culture, I really don't see how that cultural assault can be stopped. It's a mindless monster with a mind of its own. So to the Islamic world, which sees the beast only, the only rational response is to resist unto dealth. And they will (I've lived in a Muslim country, and have no doubt about that. We cannot win this one.)
But the other nasty truth is that our entire lives are based on oil. Cars. Interstates. Food. Trade.
It goes on and on.
I don't have an answer, but it bothers me to blithely talk about how ugly and awful our foreign policy has been -- and it has been -- without acknowledging both that we've all reaped the benefits of that policy, and also that pulling out of the ME, of changing how we've been doing things quickly, without some alternative in place, will be enormously and desperately damaging to our own people. To us. To you and me.
I just am scared to death that we're really on the verge of a change and challenge and Mad Max-ish apocolyptic future, and no one's doing anything to get ready, including the Democrats. WE're still just mouthing the feel-good platitudes about how awful our government has been, without the common decency to admit that we've all benefitted from the bad stuff, too.
March 21, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an odd view in my opinion.
How do you think we have benefited by having originally sparked and ever since fueled the rise of radical islamic funamentalist terrorism? You know, we could have just paid a fair price for the oil and none of this would be happening. Instead, we wanted to control the oil supply and rob the Iranians (in this case)of a fair profit from their own natural resources which has led us to this point. It would have been much, much cheaper (not to mention safer) to buy the oil honestly and for a fair price.
At every juncture, an examination of the covert and overt machinations of the US and particularly of the CIA since World War II in the internal affairs of foreign countries, reveals that whatever short term gains we realized via those manipulations have been vastly offset by the horrendous consequences those very actions have brought about.
Do you really fear our sudden loss of the oil we so gluttonously overconsume? Or is that you fear the US might be repaid in the same manner as that which we have treated much of the Islamic world over the past 60 years? Experience shows that foreigners of all kinds are, on the whole, far more civilized in their behavior toward us than we have been toward them. What we should fear is a continuation of the outrageous attempts by the US to dominate and exploit the people and resources in the Islamic world. That course brought us the terrorism, violence and instability we now see in the Islamic world. Imagine how "beneficial" it will be to us if we continue down that path. Don't know about you, but I could do without those kind of "benefits".
March 22, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
You seem to have missed Goshen's main point. It is not that U.S. policy towards the Mideast has brought great benefits to the American people, but that they have become addicted to massive imports of oil from that region, and that this addiction has encouraged a lot of stupid actions by the U.S. government. And that the new friendlier approach of Obama towards Iran, etc., does not begin to take into account the serious changes that are in store for America. We cannot continue as we have, and we have not yet faced up to that reality. Maybe this facing the music is yet to come from Obama, but it hasn't come yet, and THAT -not a loss of "benefits"- is what appears to concern Goshen, and with good reason.
March 22, 2009 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't miss the point at all. The fear of having to actually change something about our gluttonous lifestyle choices is an unnecessary one. What are we anyway? A nation of total pansies?
March 22, 2009 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, a nation of pansies. Or, at least, one might be forgiven for fearing widespread pansieism.
March 22, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't disagree that change would be good, in the long run. And by "long run", I mean 50 years from now.
It's the stuff in between now and then that I'm talking about.
I've got children, and hope to have grandchildren. I may not suffer much, but 10, 20, or 30 years down the road, they very well might be living in an entirely different world, and not a very good one. It's kind of hard to tell them "well, tough shit."
March 22, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't just tell them "tough shit." Tell them what happened, for example to Clinton when he tried to raise the gasoline tax in 1993. Of course, one cannot put all the blame for America's predicaments onto just a few people, but the fact is that decisions, shortsighted selfish stupid decisions, were made by people in power, again and again. There is no GOOD reason why Americans had to consume two or more times as much petroleum per unit of GNP as other industrialized countries did for many decades. As for the very long run, it will be even longer if necessary corrections continue to be postponed.
March 22, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe it's necessary to assume some sort of cold unconcern for human suffering to see the need to make massive changes in how we do things. It makes me wonder just how old you are, and whether you have children, because you don't sound like someone who has that at stake.
But it is attitudes like you express that we've seen played out all too often by absolutists of all stripes: young ideologues who are just so certain they know what's best for the rest of us.
I hope you're not the kind we get in charge when the hard decisions have to be made.
March 22, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am old enough to remember the 1973 oil crisis and how America failed to make necessary fundamental reforms afterwards. I have kids and am concerned about their future, and am not going to try to figure out your confusion or the pointless and false insults in your last post. Maybe you have good intentions but can't express them properly. Your problem.
March 23, 2009 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
False, yes. My comment was really aimed at oleeb's posts, not yours. My mistake.
Pointless? In the right context, no. And it's our collective problem.
March 23, 2009 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fair enough. Mistakes happen, and while not endorsing the personal remarks, they are certainly less pointless if aimed at conspiracy theorists.
March 23, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have kids too and no matter what, the world will be very different for them. It will be much better if we start the changes asap as opposed to waiting. If we weren't so wasteful we wouldn't even have to face the choices that are now unavoidable. Continued imperialism is not the answer.
March 22, 2009 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Everything we are told about Iran in this country is propaganda. Yeah, pretty much everything."
We just aren't told much of anything unless we seek it out. If you mean a headline about Bush's "axis of evil" or scare talk about nuke weapons development, is "pretty much everything", well, duh, no argument except that's hardly close to everything.
It's ignorance, not propaganda which might be a problem. There is plenty of reasonable info available.
I'd be interested to know what you've been told about Iran. Give it a balanced shot!
March 21, 2009 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
News Flash: NASA Finds Human beings in Iran
NASA Scientists have discovered starling new evidence of human beings in Iran. The unnamed spacecraft crashed in the Iranian nation at 4.30pm Iranian time last Tuesday.
The spacecraft has allowed scientists to conduct vast amount of research which has led to this startling discovery. Scientists have claimed it offers irrefutable evidence that human beings might possibly have existed in Iran for thousands of years.
American and European scientists have been puzzled as to why they have failed to discover human beings in Iran until now, especially since they are so abundant.
The spacecraft contained a video message from President Obama addressing the newly found human beings. In his message Mr. Obama says "Nanu Nanu. We hope some day we can be friends."
March 21, 2009 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a typical collection of bash America liberals! Iran committed an act of WAR against the US by invading our embassy. They have killed American civilians and soldiers around the world. They are the world's largest supporter of terrorism. They are responsible for many of the US combat deaths in Iraq. They have openly pledged to destroy Israel. And to you liberals, we're the ones to blame! You are idiots to think that all Iranians support the crazy mullahs, many would welcome back the Shah. He was only deposed because a weak democrat idiot Carter refused to help him, and as a result hundreds of thousands are dead. To the idiots who say the Shah was a horrible despot, remember all those demonstrations against him? Now, do you remember any against Hitler, or Stalin, or Hussein, or Khomeni? No, because under a real dictator to protest is to die.
March 22, 2009 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Memo To The Clever Bulldog:
American Dogs start their story in 1979. Persian Cats start their story in 1953.
March 22, 2009 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
If he remembers one Iranian outrage--and only one Iranian outrage--then isn't that one outrage the whole story?
Disciple of Talk Radio, anyone?
March 22, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the occupation of an embassy by a group of radical students is an "act of war" then what do you call the deliberate overthrow of a legitimately elected government of a sovereign nation by a foreign power? You illustrate the point about propaganda made above very well because you obviously don't know anything at all about the history of US and Iran. Like all people who are so ignorant they don't even know how ill-informed they are you make your points with great confidence and bluster not knowing how you embarass yourself before anyone who actually is informed on this topic. It's really a pity... for you.
Read a short book called "All the Shah's Men" which was written by a former NYT reporter, Stephen Kinzer. It provides all the factual background about the totally uncalled for interference by the US inside Iran beginning in the 1950's. I dare you to read it and then still spout the nonsense you've written above. Here's a link to it:
http://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/047018549X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237733606&sr=1-1#
March 22, 2009 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bulldog, your barking has overcome your cleverness. Plenty of Iranians DID die at the hands of the Shah and his secret police. By most accounts, the mullahs HAVE been worse than the Shah (for IRAN!). Revolutions often make a bad situation worse. Stalin murdered many millions more than the Russian czars did. But, the czars were not put on the throne by a U.S. orchestrated coup d'etat. We don't need to excuse the barbaric embassy occupation of Nov-1979 to Jan-1981 or subscribe to oleeb's fantasies about the U.S. conspiring with Saddam in 1980 to recognize that the American government DID intervene and heavily in Iran in 1953, and supported the Shah (even against the interests of the American people, let alone international justice and democracy) until he was toppled in 1979.
March 22, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Again, your wikipedia informed ignorance of the US backed invasion of Iran demonstrates you don't know what you're talking about there.
March 22, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Repeating a big lie over and over again is quintessential propaganda at its worst. Doing so in the name of countering propaganda is hypocrisy taken to an extreme.
Here is what the NEW YORK TIMES Almanac says under "Iran". You call this "wikipedia informed ignorance" but why should we take your dubious word instead of that of the New York Times?
"On Sept, 22 1980, a dispute between Iran and Iraq over the Shatt al-Arab waterway flared into open warfare. The war severely crippled Iran. Estimates on casualties range from 450,000 to over a million dead on both sides, and the war absorbed nearly all Iran's revenue from oil exports, leaving it nearly bankrupt. The U.S. was also drawn into the conflict. In 1986, Reagan administration officials attempted to secure the release of hostages in Lebanon by trading arms to the Iranians; and on July 3, 1988 an American ship patrolling in the Persian Gulf accidently shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all aboard."
I am not sure about the "accidently" part with regard to the airliner of 1988, and there is no doubt in my mind that Iraq was the aggressor in the "flaring" of the dispute into war, but clearly there is not the slightest hint of any backing in this actual DOCUMENTATION for your hypocritical fable about the U.S. (!) invading Iran EIGHT YEARS BEFORE THAT using Saddam's Iraq as its proxy.
March 22, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know a guy who insisted to me that, even though the US won the Cold War, we should STILL have nuked the USSR. Consider that logic: he was saying that a "conflict" we won without any battles should instead have been won by massive bloodshed, and the loss of millions of innocent lives. I couldn't see how that would make the victory somehow better, and he couldn't explain why it would, except as some kind of "principle."
I know the Iranians love their children, I know they really love the US and want to be friends, I know they want more openness in their own society, and I know that it's only their hard-line government (just like the Soviets) that rattles the sabers and struts around making pronouncements about the Great Satan, but I wonder if any hard line conservatives in the US will listen. A religion professor once told me that the main idea behind most cults is not a concept of God, but a clear concept of "who is Evil"-- I think conservatives need their own Great Satan to point at or else they lose their moral balance. They can't allow themselves to think of the Iranians as people.
March 24, 2009 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I think conservatives...can't allow themselves to think of the Iranians as people."
The deficiency of this theory is that it presupposes that so-called "conservatives" nowadays THINK to any meaningful extent about any major public issue. Is Africa a country or a continent? Don't think about it.
March 24, 2009 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Travel journalists' job can be a dangerous one especially when they are in the Middle East where the peace and order situation is always volatile. Yes, it may be true that the guts of these people are underestimated by many Western countries that's why they may feel insulted at times which adds fuel to the fire. Rick at closet organization systems | porch awnings station
August 21, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
That certainly is true Rick. One thing we tend to forget is the danger that these guys put themselves into when out in the Middle East.
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November 11, 2009 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
thanks for the posts, these people are heros in their own right, how many of us can do the things they do
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January 8, 2010 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
the middle east I coulodnt even imagine going there, definately heroes :)
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February 2, 2010 4:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow Rick Steves talking politics, I like it. Great read and informative responses!!!
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February 4, 2010 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is so much stereotyping about Iran and we neglect to look at the people who are actually experiencing the real struggle of living. We are so caught up with everything that is in between that we overlooked the most important picture - the people. This article opens us up to the realization that people in Iran want to be taken seriously and not just because they are in the middle of a war and that all we ever care about is how our lives and the market world will ever be affected with the fluctuation of their natural resource. This people deserved better and thank you for Rick Steves for bringing this on the table.
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February 7, 2010 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I ve’ realised that i am passionate about travelling, adventure and to mix with new people,know their culture and the history of a place.so i thought may be a travelling journalist is a good career option.
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February 10, 2010 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is a reason why they have been bestowed with such natural resource. A lot of us may think that they do not deserve it. But, who are we to question the ideals of these people that we think so violently of. It is such a shame that we look on them so indifferently yet we forget to see how imperfect we also are.
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February 12, 2010 4:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Being a Travel Journalist is great, challenging, and stressful. It takes a lot of courage.
You obviously put a lot of work into that post and its very interesting to see the thought process that you went through to come up with those conclusion. Thanks for sharing your deep thoughts. I must admit that I think you nailed it on this one.
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February 22, 2010 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whoa! I can't believe in your statement that Iraq seems like a good country that has a good people? For I know Iraq is a country wherein people are war freak, that is based on the news I had seen every time they featured Iraq.
Well, thanks for your blog through the information in it I gain an idea that country has kind people which is far for what I know.
Your a great journalist, keep posting.
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April 27, 2010 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
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October 7, 2010 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
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October 21, 2010 3:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
The war severely crippled Iran. Estimates on casualties range from 450,000 to over a million dead on both sides, and the war absorbed nearly all Iran's revenue from oil exports, leaving it nearly bankrupt. The U.S. was also drawn into the conflict. In 1986, Reagan administration officials attempted to secure the release of hostages in Lebanon by trading arms to the Iranians; and on July 3, 1988 an American ship patrolling in the Persian Gulf accidently shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all aboard." Bifold Doors
October 21, 2010 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rick Steves is a great travel journalist and I respect his opinion. I'm sure he had a hard time traveling in Iran, due to the population's resentment. Unlike when he traveled to the resorts in Hawaii, the journalist is now grave and sober. I've read the article and I've learned about his political opinion, but I didn't see what is his traveling impressions.
March 4, 2011 3:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I like to visit many areas all the world, but Iran is not in my top 10 choices. My last travel was in UK and even if you don't have the diversity and Iran's antagonism, at least after you pass through Luton parking you have a great variety of choices. There are historical references almost almost every step.
April 6, 2011 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Iran is definitely not a country one can go visit with the Carnival Cruises, but it is also not a country full of savages that walk around naked while hunting with a spike. It takes a journalist like Rick Steves to make us figure that out, because sometime the media can be fooled, too.
April 22, 2011 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink