The Middle East: A Time to Remember

Alain Nogues / Sygma / Corbis

Iran Farah, Iran's Empress, sits beside her husband the Shah, during her 1967 coronation

A Chilly Night in Isfahan, Iran, 1971
As my parents unload the bags from the taxi, they tell me to sit in the hotel lobby and watch over my 2-year-old brother. I don't, not closely enough, and he waddles into the street, where he is knocked down by a truck. He's fine, if stunned. My parents assure the police that any fault lies not with the truck driver but with them, for leaving a toddler with a 5-year-old. It doesn't matter. The driver is still hauled off to prison. He is held because we are Americans, and the U.S....

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