In the 1960s and 1970s, Iran was different. Rock-and-roll bands competed to outdo each other as women in short skirts danced the night away doing the “Tehran twist.”

Teenagers and families flocked to Caspian beaches. Hollywood and Iranian blockbusters played in Tehran cinemas. When I studied as a Ph.D. student in Iran in the 1990s, my tutors related their motorcycle trips across Europe, getting visas easily at every border. Two decades before, revolutionaries marched through the streets and savvy Iranian investors opened Shemshak, a ski resort at 10,000 feet and just a short drive from Tehran.