Daryl Cagle: Hi, I am Daryl Cagle and this is the Caglecast.
Today we're doing the war in Iran and we have Nik Kowsar, Iranian
cartoonist, who I've known for probably 25 years, 20 years.
And uh, Nik is—uh—was a very prominent cartoonist in Iran until
the clerics didn't like his cartoons and they threw him in the infamous
Evin Prison.
And since then he's thriving in the West and he is a syndicated cartoonist
with Cagle Cartoons writing about Iran.
So it's a delight to have you here, Nik.
Nik Kowsar: Thanks for having me.
Daryl.
Yes, it was the year 2000 that I was actually surfing the web and found Cagle.com.
At that time.
And then of course, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, it was MSN
Cagle or uh, what type of—
Daryl Cagle: We were partnered with Slate and we were partnered with MSNBC.
That's right.
And now we're not partnered with anybody.
We're an independent voice.
You know, I get lots of uh submissions from Iranian cartoonists and they
are actually really pretty good compared to the other stuff we get.
And they're very earnest and I would love to work with them, but I just can't.
Nik Kowsar: I hear you.
Unfortunately, that's because of the Islamic regime and uh what
it's done all these years, and the pressure actually comes on
the pens and backs of uh Iranian artists.
Daryl Cagle: Well, this cartoon is by Steve Sack, and I think
it's a wonderful cartoon.
It made me laugh.
The FIFA Peace Prize is actually pretty funny in itself, and uh
I think we will notice that the editorial cartoonists are entirely
against Trump and Trump's war in Iran.
And uh, I wonder how you feel about it.
Nik Kowsar: Uh, first of all about that wonderful cartoon by Steve.
Uh, Iran was supposed to be one of the participants in the World
Cup this summer, and there's a thought that Iran would actually
boycott this event and because how can uh first of all, how could
the US give the players a visa to play on American soil
while the two countries are at war?
That's one thing.
Second, it would be very hard for the Iranian people
actually to accept the national soccer team play in the US
under these circumstances.
So it's a complicated situation and uh yeah, it doesn't sound—
Daryl Cagle: Well, it seems like soccer is a pretty trivial thing to
be concerned about as we're having a war.
And to hear uh you know Trump bashing with the FIFA Peace Prize,
that triviality makes it funny.
It
Nik Kowsar: does, it does.
But uh talking about the war, uh
I hate wars.
I lived through one from uh 1980 to 1988.
Just days before um going to middle school, the Iraqi MiGs
attacked the Mehrabad airport.
That was about, let's say two and a half miles away from our house in
Tehran, and we heard the explosions.
We went to the rooftop with my cousins and witnessed the smoke, the
explosions, and all the noise and the eighties became hell for many of us.
So I don't think war is uh something that we should love,
at least from my perspective.
I remember it was in the 2014 uh cartoon convention in San Francisco
when uh I think we were all on the bus.
Coming back from the Snoopy Museum and the Blue Angels were flying over the
Golden Gate Bridge and some of the cartoonists on the bus were scared of hearing the
F-18s roar at that time.
So that was our whole life in the 1980s because of course not F-18s
but MiGs and uh Tomcats and French Mirages that uh Saddam
used to send to bomb our cities.
So we went through all of that and it's not a very good feeling, I should say.
Daryl Cagle: Well, we don't like war.
I think the cartoonists are uniformly opposed to Trump on this.
We've seen a lot of farting.
It's interesting that war leads to Trump farting.
Um.
Nik Kowsar: And the farts actually in the other cartoon looked
like Ayatollahs, so that was really
Daryl Cagle: beautiful.
Oh, yes, yes.
Ayatollah farts.
Nik Kowsar: Ayatollah and a beard.
Yes.
Daryl Cagle: This is Pat Bagley.
He's just great.
And he's uh he started drawing Trump farting in almost every cartoon.
Now, I don't know that the editors care much for farting, but uh—
Nik Kowsar: It's artistic.
It's about art and farts working together, so it makes
it work.
It's really artistic.
Daryl Cagle: So uh, given the horrors of war, what do you think about all of this?
Nik Kowsar: It's horrible.
Uh, first of all, I've been focused on the environment and
water for a long, long time.
Aside from being a cartoonist, I was a geologist once upon a
time and worked on water issues.
And I don't remember a single war that has
had benefits for the environment, except I think the Korean War that created that DMZ
area between South Korea and North Korea, where uh no man can make things worse.
And because of that, some ecosystems I've heard thrive over there.
But apart from that zone, no.
Every war has had a negative impact on the environment. I was in Vietnam
a few months ago visiting the Delta, and you could hear uh you could
listen to stories from uh old Vietnamese professors that were
talking about Agent Orange and other chemicals that had ruined the soil and
the ecosystem over there for years.
And in some parts it was taking years and years to
actually make things better.
So
I know war is uh not just hell for human beings, but
also for the environment.
And I think you as a Californian are more concerned about the environment than
many other people that I have spoken to.
So I think we have an understanding on that as well.
Daryl Cagle: Yeah, we keep our eye on the environment, but that's getting
to be true all over the world.
Nik Kowsar: It is.
It is.
And by now I know so many groundwater sources, aquifers have been contaminated.
The air is so polluted right now because of all the asbestos
in the air after each and every explosion and the lives lost is not something nice to
actually even witness, but it's happening.
When I learned about that elementary school that was bombed the other day in
the southern town of Mena, the school was next to a military compound, but those
children had nothing to do with this.
Daryl Cagle: So how do you see the war going now?
You have uh unusual insight into uh the character of Iran
and the characters that run it.
Where do you see this going?
Nik Kowsar: Uh, we have a saying that the Islamic Republic does not bow to
power unless the power is too powerful.
So I see that uh you have to see when the camel's back is
gonna break with just one single
extra straw, dust particle, or even straw.
And it'll happen.
But the price that people are paying for this war is too high.
And we don't know, what's the objective? Is it regime change? Is it changing the behavior of the Ayatollahs? Is it more oil? I don't get it. [... full remaining cues follow the same correction pattern up to the end ...]
Daryl Cagle: All right, that's it.
Bye folks.