After the September 11 attacks and the U.S invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, an ‘obsession’ with the United States and its military presence in the region had overtaken the public discourse in Iran. Domestic fears that Iran would be the next target of a U.S military intervention grew after the George W. Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil” speech. The depth of Iranian reformers’ interest in rapprochement with America could be assessed from the way the reformists reacted to Bush’s statement. To begin with, reformers blamed Iranian conservatives’ foreign policies for increasing tensions with America. The common theme of discussions was ‘Who lost the United States?’ Reformers in Parliament and newspapers argued that the conservatives’ provocative international
