Ali

He's Iranian-American.

His parents also left Iran in the revolution.

And he told us that after the Iran-Iraq war, in the 90s, the country started to open up, increasing trade with non-U.S.

partners.

They needed to rev the economy.

To do that, they kind of put away their whole no foreign investment thing.

And they gave more leeway to the private sector.

And over time, this liberalization basically worked.

GDP grew in fits and spurts, but keeping pace with its peers like Turkey.

The middle class of Iran was growing.

Economically, things were basically fine.

Yar actually got to see the results of this second period of our economic history of Iran, the yield of those two decades of opening up and economic growth.

In 2013, Yar's dad went back to Iran again, and this time, Yar went with him.

He was in college at the time.

There were more mall developments going up.

People were buzzing around buying their things.

He was calculating how much not keeping up he was.

And you're always thinking, what is this feeling?

Why are the vibes so off?

Yeah, this time the U.S.