Not really, most Jews are from the Arab world not Europe. But the culture of a place still doesn't make the country a strategic asset or liability.

Iran's wars with the Spartans 2500 years ago is hardly relevant today. Your whole method of thinking here is a bit absurd, no offense. And you're right, Khomeini calling the US the Great Satan 30 years ago was a bad move, most Iranians would agree. But I'm sure you would agree that calling Iran a member of the "Axis of Evil" is equally unproductive. Especially given how far that phrase went to get Ahmadinejad elected.

I don't know of any Sunni-Shia war that Iran was involved in. Iran has fought against countries that have happened to be Sunni, but that's like saying the Iraq war is a Christian-Muslim war when it's in fact a political conflict. I'm not aware of "mass genocide" by Iran, or really anyone else in the region. The Turkish Muslim slaughter of the Armenian Christians can be considered genocide, but I don't know of any other recent example at least. Perhaps the other closest thing to this might be the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the Jews under the cover of the 1948 war. And Israel offers stability? It is the most conflict prone country on the entire planet, how has it brought stability? And other countries are democracies too, like Lebanon and Turkey for example. And if I'm not mistaken every country in the Middle East other than Iran, Syria, and Lebanon have US troops or bases, so what makes Israel unique in this regard? You've hardly laid out any semblance of a strategic case for Israel.

And we're the biggest baddest member of the "Axis of Evil". I'm loving this taunting back and forth between Iran and the US.
The supplying of insurgents and resistance groups and so on, as well as a lot of the other actions of the government, have to be seen through the lens of forcing America to recognize Iran. It's complicated, but I explain it in detail here: Isreal and Iran

there are enough democracies in the middle east. In fact, Turkey is so vehimently against religion in the state they really take it to the extreme. Far further then any western country takes it.

ie. all religious symbols are forbidden even in the university! I have yet to see any western country forbidding any relgious objects in the university.

That was an interesting post. Not entirely sure how much I agree with it, but maybe.

From my POV it went more like.

First we messed around with Iran as we tended to do in the cold war, playing "topple the governments that don't like us" with the USSR. This was going well for us, but then the revolution hit.

Now that wasn't so great, but onlike other countries that didn't go our way Iran decided to take everybody in the embassy hostage. This was a very big deal in the US. Carter is generally considered to have perpetuated the problem by being limp wristed with Iran on the matter, which in part led to him being replaced by Reagan.

The hostage crisis totally broke diplomatic relations with Iran and they haven't been restored. It also got a bunch of sanctions and such set up between the US and Iran.

It may have also had rather a lot to do with us then backing Iraq in the long lasting Iran-Iraq war. Which featured Iranians hitting civilian tankers from Kuwait and some naval skirmishing between Iran and the US.

Life for American diplomats didn't get any better when they got blown up famously in 1983 by Islamic Jihad/Hezbollah/Iran. The attacks being considered to have been authorized by Iran, and certainly those committing the attacks were funded by and spoke of Iran. They did some more stuff like that.

Continuing on another branch of Hezbollah went for another terror attack in Saudi Arabia with the Khobar tower bombing in 1996.

Though I think something Tim and I agree on is that starting in 1998 Iran started making friendly gestures with Khatami. Relations got a bit better but a sticking point was the US wasn't willing to normalize relations while Iran supported Hezbollah and even then we didn't like their nuclear program.

Bush would later throw Iran in on the Axis of Evil speech. Of course Iran had at least in the past sponsored terrorists, and even at that point could arguably be seen as pursuing nuclear weapons, so when Bush was looking for countries that would be threats to the US Iran was convenient.

Though with it sounding like they might have met our preconditions its possible Bush really pooched a chance for meaningful peace and a resolution of issues with the 2003 fax. Though it sounds like this was due to not believing it actually came from the Iranian higher ups.

I'll believe that after that it could be felt Iran had to "make" America want to talk. But Ahmadinejad really does seem to be trying to really tick America off.
And really with America you know we have to change presidents semi often. Without all that stuff McCain would be less popular (Obama has taken a bit of a beating on Iranian issues), and Iran would have been able to work with an Obama presidency without all this stuff. Would have been easier too, and much less likely to have gotten you bombed.

I beg to differ. The Jew's in Israel are by and large descended from European Jew's. The first wave was from the Zionist conference in the 19th century, but this movement of people was accelerated by WW2 and it's aftermath. Yes, the culture of the place does make a strategic asset because Israel is a Liberal Democracy cut from Western cloth, the only one in the whole Middle East. Why is Israel a Strategic asset? Pure and simple, the Israeli's prevent a power in the Middle East from taking over the whole region. Why does this concern me? Well the chiefly is down to the fact that the region holds the most sway over the price of oil. Monopolies on such a valuable resource is definitely not what I want.

Quite the contrary I think the wars between the Greek's and Persian's are very relevant today. If anything we are repeating history, that is, the Iranians becoming the most powerful country in the Middle East being the only one the challenge the West. Now considering what we Americans have done to you Iranians I seriously doubt they we are going to be all 'Buddy-like' overnight. Thus Iran will be taking it's historical role of challenging the West, that is, being the only country in the Middle East that is able to challenge the West. Yes, the Axis of Evil is not very productive at all, I agree with you there, but big mirales in Iran depicting America as the Great Satan and wishing death upon us does not help either, the thing is with all this name calling it really is a two way street, both parties are responsible for idiotic statements which promote animosity.



Iran has it's own insurgency with Kurd's that is ongoing. Iran has fought against Sunni's in wars that were political, but what do you say to the fact that Iran arms Shia insurgents in Iraq and not Sunnis? Doesn't that seem like it promoting religious conflict? I'll make the case again, Israel is not a Islamic country and would oppose (in the unlikely event) that Bin laden gets his greatest wish which is a Middle East wide Caliphate. Quite honestly like I said earlier, I wouldn't care is this happened if the Middle East didn't have so much oil. Israel would fight to death to stop this which aligns America and Israel in the category of mutual interest.

__________________
I'll tell you this no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn
Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too
You may bury my body, down by the highway side,
so my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride.