Nima Shirazi talked with the Real News Network on Iran and the Resistance Axis: Demystifying Iran and the ‘Resistance Axis’. It's a very long interview and discussion but I like this part:

Nima Shirazi: Yeah. Iran is a large country with 80-plus million people. It has its own interests as a nation-state. Its government has its own interests domestically and internationally. There are all manner of different political persuasions and different perspectives on things within the country and within its people. To say that Iran has one thing that it wants to do is a way to flatten reality so that we can somehow after the Cold War ended, have a new, big, bad puppet master enemy. You don’t have the Soviet Union anymore, you don’t have communism in that way anymore, therefore, the political narrative switches to worrying about Iran and worrying about Islamism.

But so much of what this does is self-perpetuating because by casting Iran, its government, and also its people – And let’s be clear about this – The US and its allies and affiliated media arms love to do this thing where there’s the government and then the people. No, we’re not talking about the people; We love the people, we’re just talking about the government. But then everything we do is attacking the people. Every sanction, every missile strike, every drone attack attacks people. So that is a way to disassociate and dismiss out of hand, this idea that our interests, US interests, and Western interests are not fully bent on domination. They care about the freedom, love, and peace of people around the world. Okay. But with that in mind, this constant drumbeat of Iran can’t be trusted, Iran is our enemy, Iran is in charge, Iran is in control. One of my favorite terms herein that Wall Street Journal piece is the “land bridge.” You mean like, earth? [Max laughs] Okay. Cool.

Maximillian Alvarez: Also known as land [all laugh].

Nima Shirazi: Yeah. Like, okay. The land bridge between New York and Los Angeles is ripe with Americans [Max laughs]. Whoa, it’s fucked up. They built a land bridge. So all of this serves the purpose of not only refusing to change the perception of an enemy state to keep that threat ever present. So that American interests, American actions, Israeli interests and actions, and Saudi interests and actions can be perennially justified. Anything they do can be justified. It is reasonable to act in this way because of big, bad Iran. But also what that does, much in the way that we see the US political machines and media talk about Latin and South America, when there are socialist governments challenging American hegemony, those countries have been under threat. Their governments and their people have been under threat and under attack for so long and never allowed to fully realize the nation-states that they could have, with the popular representation that they could have, with the aspirations of the people enacted in the way that the people get to decide because they are constantly under threat.

Being constantly under threat serves a real political purpose not only for the US threatening those countries but also within those countries. Because the people and governments of those countries are always under siege, and therefore, what you see is this idea that what Iran could be is not allowed to be realized on purpose because it is constantly under sanction and under threat. The fact that Iran still maintains this terrifying persona in the American political power structure psyche is a real testament to how much resistance Iran has been able to maintain, that it has not been regime changed, it has not been occupied. So it’s important to realize that this threat narrative not only threatens people within those countries and whatever spectrum of political interests they have for aspirations of stronger democratic representation, of different relations with other countries in the world, that is done on purpose; Exacted from the outside onto those countries to stifle the natural course of the way that nation-states evolve.