ABSTRACT
While from a political-cultural perspective of US–Iran relations, it is Americans, and by extension the West, who have repeatedly misunderstood Iranian affairs, from an economic perspective, it is two aspects of American hegemony, namely foreign investment and consumption of oil, that have caused the present crisis in the Middle East. Simin Daneshvar, Shahriar Mandanipour, and Don DeLillo narrate the significance and implications of oil in establishing and changing US–Iran relations, and the subsequent wandering of both nations in making the right decision toward each other. They reveal the vulgar face of a lost system, namely a global economy based on fossil-based energy and the Third World’s share of oil resources in the global economic order. This chapter suggests that their works are the site of contestation and the ongoing debate between capitalism and American imperialism, the Pahlavi era and the Islamic Republic, and the struggle to change political-economic affinity to enmity.
