In the conversation Iran After America (with Jonathan Shainin for Equator, August 1, 2026), Vali Nasr says:
The scholar Bernard Lewis wrote an essay once about the role of ‘dragomans’ – the Ottoman court interpreters and diplomatic intermediaries. He saw himself this way, as the translator of the Arabs into Western languages. I believe his whole enterprise was ultimately based on such colonial assumptions.
Many of the academics of my generation saw ourselves as dragomans of a more authentic sort than Lewis – though he might accuse us in turn of bias. I’m not claiming to have a monopoly on truth. But increasingly I became convinced of these distortions. It’s difficult, because I do not have charitable views of the Islamic Republic and the way it has ruled over Iran. But to have value, my writing has to be level-headed.
Dragomans were typically Ottoman Greeks who communicated with Europeans. (as per Wikipedia)
Here's Bernard Lewis's book, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East
:Here's Vali Nasr's book:
