“There is scarcely anything in the pre-Islamic history of Iran, as we know it, that serves as a free and democratic, just and inspiring, ideal for a contemporary nation-state. The Achaemenid kings coroneted themselves repeatedly and through the local rituals of the people they conquered, and the nationalist Iranian historiography interprets this political practice to manufacture consent and legitimize domination as ‘respect for other cultures.’ The assumption that Cyrus the Great promoted ‘human rights’ wherever he went or that he freed Jews from slavery is very much on the model of George W. Bush’s promotion of democracy in Iraq.”
— Hamid Dabashi, Iran: A People Interrupted, 23.
