Why reading internationally is so important
The preservation of world peace may depend on it.
When the news first broke that General Qassem Soleimani had been killed in a US precision airstrike alongside several Iraqi colleagues at Baghdad International Airport, I was nose-deep in Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir, Persepolis.
Like the vast majority of those who consume English-language news, I know very little about Iran outside the overarching media narrative of a repressive Islamic state. To my credit, as a China-specialist, I know a little about their war with Iraq in the 1980s — in which China was one of several nations selling weapons to both sides. I was also lucky enough to join a seminar series on political Islam last year, again through the lens of China, which involved an introduction to the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Middle East’s only successful Islamist revolution.
Though, admittedly, I still struggled to locate Iran on an unmarked map.
Only 23% of those surveyed in the United States by the Morning Consult earlier this week could locate Iran, and yet 47% support the strike that killed Soleimani.
