Iranians don't seem to care much for democracy. https://en.radiofarda.com/a/ap-was-there-iran-s-1979-islamic-revolution-sweeps-nation/29765359.html Trying to blame Americans for what happened during WWII and 1953 only shows how irresponsible many Iranians can be. Instead of cursing Americans for your self inflicted fate you should be begging for their help.
The American role in overthrowing the democratically-elected President of Iran and replacing him with a dictator -- as a favor to British oil companies -- is well-known and not disputed by any informed person. I think most Iranian democrats are wise enough not to hold it against us, the way we don't hold it against the British that they killed thousands of us before letting us go. Like all real-world political situations, however, there were complexities that are often left out of partisan accounts. (One fairly popular book -- something along the lines of 'Why Do People Hate America?' -- has Mossadegh being executed, which did not happen.) And many Leftists believe the Shah was put in so American oil companies would benefit -- in fact they had to be arm-twisted by the American government to get involved -- see The Prize by Daniel Yergin. Mossadegh himself acted unwisely -- it was the Iranians' misfortune not to have a tactically-shrewder leader to lead them out of British domination at that point. (The Chinese and Vietnamese Communists were much wiser in their maneuvering among the Western powers which wanted to dominate them.) Had Mossadegh succeeded, it's by no means certain that he could have led Iran, at that stage, towards something like a secular democracy. The Persians are an ancient people, deeply civilized -- far more than the Americans -- but at that time they were in the grip of economic backwardness, with a large, very conservative peasantry, many of them under the sway of the reactionary mullahs. We saw this in 1979. (And, incidentally, the utter idiocy of the Left was shown then as well, since almost every Marxist on the planet cheered Khomeini's victory to the echo. A few months later, Iranian Marxists were being led to the firing squad by Khomeini, who, unlike them, didn't adapt his beliefs to the fads of the moment.) Why did the Americans do what they did, something which in retrospect can be seen to be a terrible mistake from the American point of view? After WWII, Third World nationalists generally had a much more benevolent view of the US than they did of the European imperialists, since the US had very few formal colonies, indeed had granted independence to its one major Asian colony, the Phllippines. And the US itself was the child of an anti-colonialist rebellion. We threw that all alway. We could have made Ho and Mao into Asian Titos. We could have been the friend of the Iranian move to gain control of their own natural resources. Why didn't we? In the case of Iran, we can blame the British. We feared the spread of Communism in the MIddle East, and at that time, the British were the main force there that could oppose it there, with military force. The British treasury was deeply dependent on the money their oil company extracted from Iran. We should have assumed responsibility for that -- if Mossadegh had been a wilier negotiator, he might have been able to get such a deal. In the event, the British could say, if you don't get rid of Mossadegh and guarantee our oil money, we won't be able to keep the whole Mid East from going Red. (Incidentally, the French pulled a similar move with respect to getting US support for their attempt to retain control of Indochina, although in that case, it was the threat of France itself going Communist that was used against the gullible people in Washington.) Also, we had the example of Eastern Europe recently before us -- in particular, Czechoslovakia, which went Communist via an internal coup (with a lot of popular support), as opposed to other Eastern European countries where the presence of the Red Army was key to their communization. There was a Communist Party in Iran -- the Tudeh Party -- but it was small, sectarian and not even involved with the pro-Mossadegh forces at first. On the other hand, the Russians were right over the border, and an earlier treaty, from the 1920s, might have provided some legal cover for their intervention. But hindsight is always 20-20. In any event, the results have been terrible, not just for the US, but for the Iranian people. However .... time moves on, Iran has developed economically and socially far beyond what it was sixty years ago. It has a large, educated, urban middle and working class who want to live in a modern society. At the same time, the mullahs still have mass support, especially in the backward countryside -- think rural Mississippi -- and they have the guns. America should recognize Iran, trade with it, build every possible economic, political and cultural link -- and let the growing Iranian 'modern class' deal with the Mullahs when the time is ripe. Whether we do or not probably doesn't matter much now. The decline of the US is speeding up noticeably, as the Leftist termites eat away at the country's internal moral fibre, and as China rises to take our place as World Number One. The Chinese do not have a bad reputation in Iran, and are smart enough not to incur the enmity of a large section of Iran's population by some sort of clumsy intervention. What this will mean for the future of Iranian democracy remains to be seen.
History in conflict includes winners from unlikely combatants. ...umm...Custer? Never underestimate your opponent.
[QUOTE="Crawdadr, post: 1069701888, member: 28316"]First, we dont care what the ICJ says. Second we are hostile to Iran because they are hostile to us because we are hostile to them and so on and so forth.[/QUOTE] Who is "we". Are you spokesperson for all of USA ?
The US is understandably hostile to the government of Iran, but not towards the Iranian people. The claim that the US wants war with Iran is imply a lie told by the ayatollahs to keep people in line. If the US really wanted war, we have had plenty of provocations from Iran to give us an excuse. Iran siezed American sailors in International waters. Iran aided insurgents in Iraq against the US. Iran sponors terrorists. And lets not forget the seizing of American hostages during Jimmy Carter's administration. An Embassy is considered the property of the country occupying it. Attacking the Embassy could easily have justified war with Iran. All things together, the US has been remarkably restrained in dealing with Iran. Iran is the neighborhood bully, and is trying to develope a nuclear arsenal to further intimidate other Middle Eastern countries. The US is right to want to prevent that from happening. Everyone should want to prevent that. The Iranian government has a constant record of lies and human rights abuses. It is an evil regime
Of course, in a military-to-military confrontation, the US would defeat Iran, although possibly paying a higher price than people think. But what would come then? Occupation of the country by the US? No one in their right mind would propose that. Better to let the natural workings of economic growth and its attendant social development move Iran towards modernity, and wait for the inevitable change from within.
Mao and Ho were rather dedicated communists. I think our chances might have been better with Ho because of the antipathy the Vietnamese have for China. We had a long relationship with the Nationalists in China and it might have proven difficult to switch horses after WW2. We bought a couple of decades of cheap oil by backing the Shah--was it worth it?
Our long relationship with the Nationalists, on the part of people who were actually there and had to deal with Chiang, gave us -- or our people on the spot -- well-deserved contempt for their leadership. Mao and Ho were certainly communists, but so was Tito. You have to ask, what did 'being a Communist' actually mean for the people concerned? In the case of the Chinese and Vietnamese, it meant first of all, national independence, and secondly, economic development. The Americans didn't threaten the first, and were champions of the only system that can guarantee the second. And note that despite American enmity, both the Vietnamese and Chinese abandoned socialism after a few years -- while retaining power for their parties -- in favor of the only system that can offer real economic growth, capitalism. Of course, there's no guarantee that we could have pulled them away from the Russians, but it's not such a far-fetched idea.
The U.S. propped up dictators in both Iran and Iraq, supplied weapons to both, then to one, and then tried to the other using laundered drug money.
All governments, without exception, support other governments that they think are friendly to them, or at least not working against their interests, and oppose those governments that they think are hostile to them, or which might work against their interests. Whether these governments are in power as the result of perfectly good democratic elections, or because some men with guns seized power, is a secondary matter. If the US embraced the dictatorship of Cuba, and gave it tons of aid, Leftists would be happy and Rightists would be unhappy. When the US embraced the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, both Leftists and Rightists were happy. Of course governments, like the rest of us, try to disguise their motivations -- few people say, "I am doing this, I believe in this, because it will make me better off". So democratic capitalist countries claim to be advancing democracy, socialist dictatorships claim to be advancing socialism. Naive people believe them. People who reflexively support whatever their government does will of course reflexively believe whatever it says. The US is a state like all others. Its leaders try to advance its interests, as they see them. Sometimes this has meant supporting democratic movements and governments, sometimes not. Overall, the existence of the US is a positive force in world history, from the point of view of advancing modernity and democracy. Think of the US like you should think of WInston Churchill. He was in many ways a reactionary: broke strikes, endorsed spraying poison gas on Iraqi villages, was unapologetic about imperialism. But .... Well, the late Fidel Castro said it best: when, at the opening of a bookstore in Havana that happened to feature some of Churchill's books, a young radical anti-imperialist complained to Castro that those books shouldn't be there, being written by a notorious imperialist, Fidel replied: "If it wasn't for Winston Churchill, you wouldn't be here."
It's been a contradiction within the American system, since WWII, that although the US has followed a realpolitik policy, it has pretended to itself that it is crusading for liberty and democracy. And the country has, overall, been a force for liberty and democracy. I think what has been lacking among our rulers has been any general theory of long-term social change. And the great military strength of the US since WWII has meant that its rulers and their advisors have not really had to think much about 'foreign policy', the way the European states did in the 19th Century. That's one reason why its foreign policy has been, especially recently, so erratic and ineffectual: determined lobbies, like embittered Cuban exiles and partisans of Israel, have been able to shape its actions, even against its best interests. We're going to be going into an extremely dangerous period during the next few decades, as American power declines and Chinese power increases. Couple that with the strenuous efforts of the Left to discredit the whole history of America, plus the increasing ethnic balkanization of the country, coupled with really spectacular economic inequality, and you've got a prescription for 'interesting times'. But it's not all grim news. The growing middle classes in countries like Russia, China and Iran are very good news, in the long run. The trick will be to avoid a big war.
It's better than hastily bombing them. It's hurting them. Continue to apply pain until their behavior is modified.
Can someone who knows more about these things than me tell me what the Iranians are doing that hurt the US? (I don't mean what they may be doing that hurts Israel or Saudi Arabia. What are they doing that hurts the US?)
I am not talking about the regime. I am not fond of it. But I know U.S is squeezing Iranian people. They learnt that whenever they say something dangerous, the currency rate for IRR to USD goes higher and life gets harder for people. But yes, if you consider Iranian only those who left Iran in 1979, then the US are their frinds.
The Iranian people are denied freedom, democracy and justice by their evil regime - but you think the US is squeezing them? The US puts pressure on the Iranian Ayatollahs to keep them from developing nuclear weapons - which they are hell-bent on doing - with which they will bully their neighbors even more. If The US had placed embargoes on Nazi Germany because of their aggressive actions before World War II would they have been squeezing the German people?
Not if it is only on arms , but sanctioning drugs, books, grocery, medicine, etc, clearly IS squeezing the people. I am not talking about the Iranian govt., which more or less has its supporters. As for the nuclear weapons, I won't comment
USA's ultimate intention might be to weaken this govt. only (and let's complacently think it doesn't want a weakened country Iran-which the history shows it does), but its anyway squeezing people - weakening the regime is a side effect at best.
