Trump’s War Aims?
A Conversation with Ervand Abrahamian
Ervand Abrahamian is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the CUNY Graduate Center and one of the foremost scholars of modern Iranian history. His talk inaugurates Brook Farm Institute’s speaker series, which brings critical voices to bear on topics of urgent public concern.
In a recent interview with the New Left Review, Abrahamian argues that “there is no American state policy. There is an Israeli policy” and that the most likely aim of the current campaign is not regime change but something more sinister: doing to Iran “what was done to Iraq, Syria and Libya—dismantling the state.” What exactly are Trump’s war aims? Regime change? Nuclear disarmament? A war of attrition with no defined endpoint? State destruction? What does history tell us about foreign intervention in Iran?
Drawing on decades of scholarship on the Iranian state, U.S. foreign policy, and the long history of sanctions, Abrahamian brings essential historical perspective to a crisis that is sure to shape the future of the region.
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About the Speaker
Ervand Abrahamian
Ervand Abrahamian is Distinguished Professor of History at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, and one of the preeminent historians of modern Iran. His books include Iran Between Two Revolutions (1982), Khomeinism (1993), Tortured Confessions (1999), A History of Modern Iran (2008), and The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations (2013). His work spans the Constitutional Revolution, the Pahlavi period, the 1953 coup, and the Islamic Republic, with particular attention to political repression, opposition movements, and the Iranian left.