The Metro: Who speaks for Iranians? On the limits of American assumptions

, March 3, 2026

As America and Israel’s war against Iran escalates, a Wayne State scholar warns against reducing 92 million people to a single story.

Iraq Iran US Israel

Iraqi Shiite carry a replica of a coffin of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Tehran, during a symbolic funeral, in Najaf, Iraq, Wednesday, March 4, 2026.

The United States has a long history of deciding what Iranians want. Saturday, it happened again.

Without Congressional authorization, President Trump and Israel launched strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader and hundreds of civilians, including as many as 165 children at a girls’ elementary school. Trump says he is giving Iranians a chance at freedom. But 92 million people live in Iran, and reducing them to a single story is something the United States has done before, with devastating consequences.

Saeed Khan, associate professor of Near Eastern Studies at Wayne State University, specializes in the politics and history of the Middle East. He joined Robyn Vincent to discuss the history the U.S. tends to ignore and the costs of reducing Iranians to a single story.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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Authors

  • Robyn Vincent
    Robyn Vincent is the co-host of The Metro on WDET. She is an award-winning journalist, a lifelong listener of WDET, and a graduate of Wayne State University, where she studied journalism. Before returning home to Detroit, she was a reporter, producer, editor, and executive producer for NPR stations in the Mountain West, including her favorite Western station, KUNC. She received a national fellowship from Investigative Reporters and Editors for her investigative work that probed the unchecked power of sheriffs in Colorado. She was also the editor-in-chief of an alternative weekly newspaper in Wyoming, leading the paper to win its first national award for a series she directed tracing one reporter’s experience living and working with Syrian refugees.

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