{"id":5930,"date":"2012-06-29T19:01:26","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T23:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/W3\/?p=5930"},"modified":"2012-06-29T19:01:42","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T23:01:42","slug":"irans-dentist-to-the-stars-offers-views-on-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/irans-dentist-to-the-stars-offers-views-on-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran’s dentist to the stars offers views on US"},"content":{"rendered":"

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TEHRAN, Iran \u2013 Prior to the Islamic revolution, Iran and America shared very good relations. The former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had an army with modern hardware supplied by the U.S. There were direct flights between New York City and Tehran and the city was full of hotels run by major American chains.<\/header>\n
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A special NBC News series: What The World Thinks of U.S.<\/strong>Click here for more information<\/a><\/p>\n
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But the once-friendly relations between the two nations came to a screeching halt in 1979 when cleric-led radicals ousted the U.S.-backed shah and the subsequent\u00a0Iran hostage crisis<\/a>\u00a0when 52 Americans were held in the U.S. embassy for 444 days.<\/p>\n

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These days, Iranians\u2019 relations with America are somewhat schizophrenic \u2013 the government is stridently anti-American, but many Iranians are not.<\/p>\n

That is the opposite of other countries in the region where governments receive large amounts of money and military hardware from the U.S., but whose people generally dislike America.<\/p>\n

Tehran\u2019s dentist to the stars
\n<\/strong>A popular dentist in an affluent part of Tehran represents the love-hate relationship many Iranians feel toward the U.S.<\/p>\n

In his Park Avenue-style dental practice, the latest Newsweek, Time and Architectural Digest magazines are on offer in the waiting room. A large flat-screen TV sits on the wall, along with an expansive fish tank and a framed dentistry degree from New York University.<\/p>\n

Iranians are consumers who love brand names \u2013 even when it comes to their dental care. When a friend of mine introduced me to the dentist, he told me he is the guy to go to if I wanted to brag about where I get my teeth cleaned. He is, in essence, Tehran\u2019s equivalent of a Beverly Hills \u201cdentist to the stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

A large part of his reputation comes not just from the fact that he has all the latest, modern dentistry equipment, but that he was trained in the U.S. and offers Western-style service. He was educated in dentistry at NYU and lived, worked and studied from the East Coast to West Coast.<\/p>\n

\"\"Reuters<\/p>\n
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Coffee mugs bearing pictures of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs are on sale as a man works on a MacBook at a shop in northern Tehran on Jan.19, 2012. Despite the fact that Apple observes a U.S. embargo that restricts the sale of their goods in Iran, their products are wildly popular there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sporting fashionable glasses, a crisp blue button-down shirt and tie, the dentist, who is in his mid-40s, agreed to speak with me on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am who I am because of my education in the States,\u201d said the dentist. \u201cI am very American, but my view on U.S. politics is very different.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked him what he thought about the\u00a0tough economic sanctions<\/a>\u00a0being imposed on Iran \u2013 which block access to the international banking system and hurt\u00a0sales of Iranian crude oil \u2013 as a way to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Iranians feel the pain of sanctions: ‘Everything has doubled in price’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are there sanctions against Iran?\u201d he said. \u201cWasn\u2019t it America that helped Iran fire up its nuclear program 35 years ago? The sanctions just hurt ordinary people.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, he praised Iranians\u2019 resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 30 years of sanctions, embargoes, war and threats of war, Iran has kept its head above water,\u201d he said. \u201cMost other countries would have collapsed, but Iranians have found ways to circumvent these problems; they help each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBC News speaks with citizens from around the globe, asking the question, ‘What Does America Mean to You?’<\/div>\n

The dentist believes that one reason for\u00a0 misunderstanding between America and Iran is that Americans have little real information on Iran \u2013 that they know only what they see on TV, which is often a very small part of the bigger picture.<\/p>\n

For years, he says, he tried to convince American colleagues to give lectures on dentistry in Iran, but that they were reluctant to do so because of their perceptions. When one of them finally agreed to come, and experienced the famous Iranian hospitality and warmth, his perception of Iran changed very quickly.<\/p>\n

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Asked why he came back to Iran about eight years ago after spending most of his life in the States, he said he just felt like something was missing, adding that he loves Tehran because it\u2019s like New York City \u2013 a noisy, fast-paced 24\/7 place.<\/p>\n

Steve Jobs photos on the wall
\n<\/strong>The desire for brand names in Iran that signify Western quality goes beyond dentistry.<\/p>\n

Mohsen, who agreed to speak with me on condition that only his first name be used, owns an electrical goods store in Tehran selling mostly black market Apple products. (Typically, Apple, as well as other imported goods that would be subject to U.S. embargoes, come into Iran via Dubai and the Persian Gulf. They are sold openly in stores in Tehran).<\/div>\n

He said that most Iranians love American products and culture and that personally he longs for the day that the two countries have normal relations.<\/p>\n

Then a frown appeared on his face. \u201cBut,\u201d he said, \u201cthey do things that even rub a moderate person, like me, the wrong way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI read an article yesterday about an Iranian-American who went into an Apple store in the States and wanted to buy an iPad to send to her uncle in Tehran. When the sales person found out she was Iranian and wanted to send the iPad to Iran, the store refused to sell it to her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is crazy! I sell 50 iPads and iPhones here a week. I have a picture of Steve Jobs on the wall! These sorts of things don\u2019t do any good for relations between Iranian and American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story Mohsen related\u00a0was widely reported\u00a0<\/a>in the U.S. An Apple employee in Atlanta declined to sell an iPad to an Iranian-American customer, citing company policy that aims to comply with U.S. trade sanctions with Iran that can lead to individual fines of up to $250,000.<\/p>\n

Iran trade sanctions get personal in Apple stores<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the meantime, Mohsen\u2019s Apple products will have to remain on the black market.<\/p>\n

Still, not all Iranians have such a moderate view towards the U.S. Hussein, a hard-line student at Tehran University, has a very negative view of the States. (He also spoke on condition that only his first name be used.)<\/p>\n

\u201cAll America has done is try to bully Iran, chip away at its nuclear rights and steal our oil,\u201d Hussein said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we should be talking to the Americans because ultimately they want our demise,\u201d he said. \u201cThroughout history, they have interfered in our country, only harming us. We have nothing in common.\u201d<\/p>\n

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By Ali Arouzi, NBC News correspondent<\/p>\n
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  TEHRAN, Iran \u2013 Prior to the Islamic revolution, Iran and America shared very good relations. The former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had an army with modern hardware … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}