When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first visit [1] to the US as president of Iran, I attended a ceremony at the Manhattan Hilton where he was speaking. Having gone there out of sheer curiosity, I sat listening, with some 450 others. After reciting a few verses from the Qur'an, Ahmadinejad spoke of the greatness of the Iranian nation and its equally great achievements under the Islamic republic.

Then Ali Larijani, Iran's former head of the nuclear programme, stepped on the podium asking the "wonderful Iranians abroad" to support the nuclear energy programme just as they had supported Iran's struggle for oil nationalisation half a century ago.

At this point, I could no longer contain myself. My father was prime minister Mohammed Mosaddeq [2]'s personal attorney, and I got up and shouted: "But there is not a street or an alley in all of Iran in the name of the man who nationalised the oil. You are lying."