In his book, Iran Diary: 1971 – 2002, Abbas structures his images around three words/series. The first is ‘Revolutions’, which shows an Iran of the Shah and the murmuring street, the cortège of ministers, and the insane stack of their cadavers at the morgue once the revolutionary spirit subsided. While ‘Exiles’ evokes the war in Iraq and the impossibility for him to return. He takes the occasion to ponder Khomeini’s confiscation of the revolution and investigates his position within this history. Lastly, ‘Returns’ describes and decrypts the Iran of today, which is surprisingly schizophrenic, where beards and chadors are wearisome flags of a cause on the glistening faces of stylish, westernized young people.