Washington imposed sanctions on Iran on September 4 to counter the sale of Iranian oil. This was announced loudly by US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook. Allegedly, Iran brought ten oil tankers to foreign countries.

And the proceeds, according to the United States, were used to finance terrorist activities and to support Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

So say the United States, but go and know. Maybe Iran spent it on baby milk for Iranian babies ... USA - they say a lot of things.

I still remember the times when the United States and Iran were friends.

It was 1978 another year. I lived and worked in New York with multimillionaire Sprague. We once went, I remember, led by the boss to the Shah Abbas restaurant in New York. Sprag was a multi-millionaire with democratic manners - we, his employees, were often brought to light. And there Peter showed me agents of the Iranian secret police - “Sawak” it was called. No, I’ll get better: Peter didn’t show, his secretary Klara showed.

Pretty sinister faces. Tall, in dark suits. Gloomy.

They were friendly to us - Peter had some kind of business with Iran, I don’t remember which one. In the house on 6 Sutton Square we had Iranian tailed pillows and a mirror surface with precious stones, broken, in my opinion, from an old mosque, decorated into a table.

And then the Islamic revolution broke out. And the first to betray the shah were his air force. Pahlavi spent a lot of money on his air forces, bought them the latest bombers, the last peep of military fashion - here the pilots were the first to leave, going to the side of Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Shah Abbas restaurant was once subjected to a noisy arrival of Muslim students studying in the USA, then it was sold to someone. The people of Sawak left to work in other structures.

Ivan Ivanovich (USA) quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich (Iran) in 1979. Iranian students captured the American embassy in Tehran in November and for a rather long time, 444 days, humiliated American diplomats there, in my opinion, following the Chinese hunweibins in this art. Then (through mediation, if I am not mistaken, Algeria) the hostages were released in the United States.

How it all developed further, I have no idea. I immigrated from the USA to France in 1980 and stopped following them.

And here I am present after 40 years with a new act of the same story.

Iran has been around for about five thousand years. And nothing happened to him - they survived. All the same Iranians live in Iran, they are Persians speaking Farsi, with the addition of several other tribes.

The United States exists ... well, two hundred and a few years. Weakened, of course, they are less obeyed in the world, but the fact: the States are undoubtedly alive and arrogance has not diminished.

Well, the goose is a pig, clearly, not a comrade, but is Iran suitable for the US opponents? Let's estimate their weight.

Different, although both are heavy. Iran has 82.5 million people, the US - 328.9 million.

Only Iran will defend itself with teeth and claws, their five-thousand-year-old history leaves no doubt about this, but will the USA attack with the same passion? In the end, for them, coming to Iran will be one of the foreign expeditions, while for Iran it is a matter of life and death.

The media around the world are thoroughly intimidating us with the US-Iranian Gulf War, but it really seems that the warring parties in this narrow gap are carefully avoiding each other, fearing a clash. Iran, like an old civilization, carefully steps. The USA, after several injuries, victories over them by smaller, but also more passionate countries (well, there in Vietnam, you remember) is also careful.

Iran will begin the third phase to reduce its obligations under the nuclear deal, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was just about to say. This "third stage" itself causes a half smile. For the third, you should probably wait for the fourth stage.

Behind the “stages” is hiding, if you read the documents on the nuclear deal between the West and Iran, the intensification or weakening of research and production of nuclear fuel for nuclear weapons. Iran once made some promises. Both Europe and Uncle Sam.

He did, of course, but the diplomatic relations between the USA and Iran were broken even then, during the days of the Iranian revolution, and have not been restored until now. So for what reason, after all, has the United States taken over Iran? Why didn’t you take root, for example, on Saudi Arabia, because it is also a Muslim country? Or to Pakistan, there are also a lot of Shiites there?

In my opinion, only the insult to the US embassy in Tehran for the 444 days of humiliation of American diplomats in the United States determines the anti-Iranian policy.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.