Scene: A café in Vancouver. Joe and Sepehr sit across from each other, drinking strong coffee and talking geopolitics.
Joe:
Sepehr, you ever notice something? Croats, Serbs, Bosnians… even after the war, a lot of people from the old Yugoslavia still think the Americans run the world.
Sepehr:
(laughs)
In Iran we think the same thing. But for us it didn’t start with the Balkans. It started with the coup in 1953.
Joe:
Yeah, the one where the CIA overthrew the prime minister.
Sepehr:
Exactly. The U.S. helped remove Mohammad Mosaddegh and put the Shah back in power. After that, many Iranians believed Washington was shaping our destiny from behind the curtain.
Joe:
That’s similar to how people in the Balkans felt during the breakup of Yugoslavia. NATO bombings, Western diplomacy… a lot of people thought the big powers were redesigning the map of the region.
Sepehr:
Because when superpowers intervene, it feels like someone else is writing your history.
Joe:
And then you hear politicians talk about a “New World Order.” Remember when George H. W. Bush used that phrase during the Gulf War?
Sepehr:
Yeah. He meant a new global system after the Cold War—more cooperation between countries and international institutions.
Joe:
But to people who lived through coups, wars, and sanctions, it didn’t sound like cooperation.
Sepehr:
It sounded like control.
Joe:
Exactly. In the Balkans, people said the Americans were redesigning Europe. In Iran, people say America is trying to dominate the Middle East.
Sepehr:
And yet, ordinary people in both places don’t necessarily hate Americans themselves.
Joe:
Right. They just fear the power of the empire.
Sepehr:
(smiles)
History teaches one thing: every empire thinks it’s bringing order. But everyone else wonders whose order it really is.
Joe:
So Yugoslavia and Iran end up asking the same question.
Sepehr:
What question?
Joe:
Is the “New World Order” about peace… or about power?