> first step towards democracy.
More importantly, when countries are strong trade partners, they are way less likely to fight. War would hurt both parties through loss of economic activity more than it would benefit either as aggressor.
The United States has been the aggressor / meddler in too much of the world for too long. It's good to see when diplomacy works, since we've been taking the "last resort" of war WAY too often.
Saying this kind of thing in 2016 is not merely naive, but sits firmly in the territory of culpable ignorance. That was Clinton's official line when he brought China into the WTO, and the following decade and a half have proven that it is perfectly possible to have a fully globally integrated market economy without making any concessions to democracy.
Apart from that, what the fall of the Berlin Wall shows is that annexing a smaller country is the first step towards extending your system of government to it, be it democracy or otherwise.
Also the protests of 2009 were held in the cities, I am not sure that they had universal support. (Can anybody explain why Obama was neutral during the Iranian protests but supported the Arab spring protesters ?)
And yes the educated cities is where the main opposition to the islamic regime is. There is support for the regime amongst the more religious fundamentalists. The islamic regime is considered by many as uneducated religious fundamentalists who have gained power by force.
There is some difference from Arab countries where Islam is synonymous with government.
I have met only a few Iranians in the US. Naturally they will not support the islamic regime, but you do get a sense of the culture and how Islam is an add on. They consider themselves much more european.
Regardless of all this, the US should not become only Sunni nation's allies. Read the wikipedia on Religion in Saudi Arabia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Saudi_Arabia. It is chilling.
We do not want to get involved in their thousand year clash on whom to follow, the father-in-law or the son-in-law. It would be excellent if the US can give more importance to Iran to counter Saudi influence in the region. Obama has done wonders.
Republicans are really stupid if they continue to villify Iran and let support for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan go unquestioned. Iran was ready to support US efforts in Afghanistan. I think the Bush families oil connections with the Saudis got in the way.
You should hear the hoops rich Chinese have to jump through to expatriate their capital. Fully globally integrated market economy my ass.
Perhaps now that we have more options in the Middle East, we can recalibrate towards the truth.
(Left out of original comment because this is wild speculation.)
Next stop Cuba?
Governments and publics tend to see sanctions as a solution to every problem, especially where they don't want to have to actually pay or sacrifice anything. They think it's a freebie, a way to get something done witout putting any skin in the game: 'We don't want to risk any lives or have to give anything up to get what we want - let's use sanctions!' Note that you won't see sanctions where it will have a serious economic impact on the sanctioning country; for example, the U.S. isn't going to enact significant trade sanctions on China.
Also, sanctions tend to have the harshest effects on the most vulnerable. In the kinds of countries that are sanctioned, the poor starve and their unelected oppressors continue to live affluent lives.
That's why in the the last decade or two, the U.S. and others have used the tactic of targeted sanctions, aimed specifically at the people in power. Sanctions freeze their personal assets in overseas banks (where they often stash their money), deny access to western markets and financial services for the businesses run by them and their leading supporters, etc. Apparently, denying the leaders travel visas to the west has a real impact (perhaps they lose status when then can't take their families on vacation to Paris and New York?).
It seems to have accomplished something in Iran (but at what cost to the poor and oppressed there?). It hasn't worked yet in North Korea, and their population already is starving. Cuban sanctions are, I think, the old-fashioned non-targeted sanctions and have been ineffective or at least clearly insufficient. Also, as I said, it's not the right tool for every job.
My point was the opposite: Sanctions in Iran worked because they were targeted at the higher ups and made them suffer. (Edit: I'm not trying to go back and forth with you, just clarifying what I meant because it seemed misunderstood.)
> I think Iran could see another uprising on the horizon, which I guess is the point of making the people suffer.
I believe that research shows that this never works. I don't want to say never, but I can't think of a situation when it has worked.
Did it stop Iran from creating a nuclear program? No. Did it allow for a change in government? No.
Mainly the people who suffered most were the common people of Iran. The government in Iran took advantage of this situation to radicalize people against the US even more.
It has stopped their nuclear program - see the news. More specifically, it didn't make it impossible for them to build nukes, but it motivated them to stop in order to get the sanctions relieved.
(Of course we all are talking speculativly, unless a someone very high in the Iranian government, who knows their motives, is posting on HN.)
This is very US centric but still interesting. http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/green-movement
>The Green Movement reached its height when up to 3 million peaceful demonstrators turned out on Tehran streets to protest official claims that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the 2009 presidential election in a landslide. Their simple slogan was: “Where is my vote?”
Not saying that might not be true now a days, taking the optimistic view. But keep in mind that Iran took the first step towards democracy (from a quasi-sultanistic plain autocracy to a theocratic republic hybrid) when it closed itself to the world economy and ousted the Shah.
I know you mention that part of history in your fifth point, but this is probably something that is important to acknowledge when talking about Iran relations. Traditionally speaking, the Iranian people have many more reasons to associate the United States with even worse dictatorships, rather than with democracy.
Food for thought: Would you rather be an Indian living in India, or a Chinese living in China?
More importantly there is a moral requirement for democracy in some form: People have a right to self-determination.
India seems to be doing relatively well, though it's hard to find anything to compare it to (Pakistan?). Democracy isn't sufficient by itself; democracies can be corrupt, poor, etc. Someone said long ago: democracies are the worst form of government - except for all the alternatives.
What relationship is that exactly? I haven't run a regression or anything, but eyeballing lists seem to show a link between a high GDP/capita and quality of life.
Singapore and Hong Kong are both pretty rich, have high quality of life but aren't very democratic. They generally rate higher for quality of life than more democratic but poorer countries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_D...
In no particular order, that's the vast majority of the richest, most well off, and highest GDP per capita countries on earth. Your list so far has Singapore and Hong Kong, now try to match my group - you can't get even remotely close.
What could you add to your list? Qatar?
In no particular order, that's the vast majority of the richest, most well off, and highest GDP per capita countries on earth. Your list so far has Singapore and Hong Kong, now try to match my group - you can't get even remotely close.
I don't understand what you are trying to say. The countries you have listed include countries like Italy and Spain that rank well below the non-democratic countries I listed (Singapore and Hong Kong). Indeed, they score (0.876, 0.873) closer to Saudi Arabia (0.837) and UAE (0.835) than to countries at the top of the list (Norway: 0.944).
The point is that I can find features that correspond to those lists better than "are democratic".
For example, there's very good correlation between the Corruption Perceptions Index[1] and the list from the Human Development Index[2].
I think Democracy is great. But I also think facts are great, and the fact is that there do appear to be other ways to good outcomes.
[1] http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_D...
> Singapore and Hong Kong
Singapore and Hong Kong are cities, and in many ways not comparable to nations. Also, both are more democratic than most comparable places in East Asia.
> there's very good correlation between the Corruption Perceptions Index[1] and the list from the Human Development Index[2]
I believe democracy is widely considered to be important to controlling corruption, but I don't know if that's backed by research or is just a widely held assumption.
Also, much of what you write seems focused on economics. For example, I don't think anyone sees the Saudi people's political rights, religious freedom, or the well-being of women there as very good.
Could you show me what metric you are using to show that?
Singapore and Hong Kong are cities, and in many ways not comparable to nations.
So is your argument that "Democracy is correlated with quality of life if a country's landmass is greater than a particular area"?
Also, both are more democratic than most comparable places in East Asia.
Can you name what other comparable East Asian countries you are comparing them too? I'd say Japan and South Korea have roughly similar GDP/Capita, but both are more democratic than Singapore and Hong Kong and have lower quality of life.
Also, much of what you write seems focused on economics. For example, I don't think anyone sees the Saudi people's political rights, religious freedom, or the well-being of women there as very good.
Sure. But then on the other side you have Israel, which may not be as extreme as Saudi Arabia but certainly has issues with political rights and religious freedom. Other democracies like Malaysia and Indonesia also don't have the same freedoms around religious and political expression as are the norm in the US and Europe, rate comparatively low on the quality of life scale and yet are undeniably democratic (at least in the case of Indonesia - Malaysia does have some issues on that, and yet as a higher quality of life).
Or compare say China and India: on women's rights China is way ahead, and their whole population's quality of life has risen higher and quicker than India's, from a similar base.
I don't know how often it happens to stable governments, but generally I agree that destroying the country (through war) and imposing democracy - the essence of which is self-determination - is short-sighted and generally disasterous.
> democracies of small countries are easy to manipulated by foreign governments and corporations
Other forms of government are more easily controlled, speaking generally. In fact during the Cold War the U.S. replaced many democracies (Chile, Zaire/Congo, Iran, and others) with dictatorships because they were more easily controlled. In those three cases, leaders the U.S. disliked were elected, prompting the coups.
> Ukraine
I'm a little puzzled by this one. Clearly Ukraine's problems are due to Russia invading, conquering a major part of their country, and creating unending war in another part.
> Taiwan's democracy has only become more and more of a joke since KMT giving up emergency powers.
I don't understand what this refers to. Taiwan's democracy is thriving; they are very prosperous. They just had another successful election and power changed hands again. Their main problem is the communist government in mainland China which puts a threatening shadow over everything and denies the Taiwanese normal relations with most of the world.
Here is the video direct from Victoria Nuland's mouth, speaking at a Chevron and ExxonMobil sponsored conference[1]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y0y-JUsPTU#t=448
Ukraine, along with Libya and Iraq are prime examples to demonstrate when the Americans tell you your country should be liberated so it becomes democratic, you should probably plan to move out.
I doubt the US goverment is capable enough to finance and plan a coup of an not yet known goverment 20+ years in the future.
Why help Ukraine with billions and not other countries that do not have gas/oil?
Between donations from Ukraine oligarchs to Clinton foundation, Joe Biden's son involved in Ukraine gas corporations, the hundreds of millions spend by U.S. every year in Ukraine to "build democratic institutions", stories from recruited shooters planted in Euromaidan[2], here you are, saying U.S. officials are the good guys for the Ukrainian people. If that's not effective propaganda, I don't know what is.
And if you think the above situation is fine and dandy, I think there's nothing else we can say to increase our agreement. I'm not the kind of person who would interfere with my neighbours family, because their children didn't get lunch money for school, so that I can buy their house at a foreclosure auction later in the year when they divorce, but if you're fine with the U.S. government doing that kind of behaviour, then I should not interfere with that, either.
[1]http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-charity-tapped-foreign-f...
> Russia would not be able to say ...
On a much more minor point, the Russian government will find a way to justify whatever it wants to do. They are not waiting for the U.S. to somehow give them the right to do it; they don't care about or need any truth or facts. For example, like the good propagandists they are, they fabricated that entire fictional structure on a tiny kernel of truth and now even people on HN are repeating it. That is information power.
Libya certainly had serious civil unrest before receiving US support. But it certainly has been going in the wrong direction since the fall of the Gaddafi government.
If you polled people in the west, at least 80% of them wouldn't be able to tell you that Yanukovych was removed illegally.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych#constitution...
Calling Yanukovich Russian-friendly is extremely naive.
Russian officials saw him is Russian-friendly. He thought he is Russian-friendly. He wasn't Russian-friendly if you consider what he did and what friends do.
And the answer to your question isn't very obvious. There are many reasons to pick either answer. I'd guess for an individual the answer would depend almost entirely on their personal value system (e.g., someone very religious, or someone who values having 2 or more kids very heavily would almost immediately exclude China from the equation. On the other hand, there are few values which would lead to someone immediately eliminating India as an option).
Other than that I think the countries are too different to make any hard conclusions. China has very strong traditions for effective administration going thousands of years back. This has likely been of more profound importance than dictatorship. Japan after the war managed to grow very rapidly under democracy. So did Germany.
While economic development in India has always been difficult. Even during the British dictatorship in India they had problems getting any kind of modern business going.
I think India suffers from not really being a single country and from being dam hot. It is harder to get stuff done under such heat. Productivity will pick up there when aircondition becomes far more common.
Really I think India should be multiple countries. When you put together lots of countries which are too different, you will get too many conflicts which will make progress grind to a halt.
I fully agree with your point that India ideally should be many, many countries: democracy suffers greatly when a massive, linguistically, religiously, and culturally diverse subcontinent is forced into a single government. Just look at Europe and their cautious, precarious tiptoeing towards political unity, despite having the relative advantage of being infinitely less diverse, way less religious, and way more developed than the Indian subcontinent.
What is in common between S.Korea, China, post-war Japan and Germany? Democracy?
It helps on the whole but it's ironic that Iran was partly democratic in the 40s which ended with a coup organized by the CIA and MI6 because Iran had been trading oil internationally and tried to get a bigger cut from BP, roughly.
They currently can't, and it's presenting a problem for people driving/riding round the world.
Neither the state department nor the Iranian government would like one to do so, but Americans can still visit the country.
One can hardly talk about US reliance on SA nowadays. US imports only 24% of its petroleum[1]. Only 13% of which comes from SA[2].
The fact that US reliance on foreign petroleum has fallen from 60% to 24% and is projected to fall to less than 10% in the next couple of years is IMO the reason why the Iran deal was possible at all. SA had no say in it.
[1]: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6 [2]: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/us_oil.cfm
This agreement is a minor deescalation of tensions. I wouldn't go as far as to say the US has another friend in the Middle East.
Is it? There have been some very successful examples: Japan, Germany, South Korea....
While the Iranian regime is going to hate all things non-muslim the population with good access to other countries and trade is likely to get de-radicalized at much faster rate.
American lives too, but probably less, taking into account how this things go normally.
For a moment, it just looked like that this could finish like Iraq again.
It's not like if nobody was pushing for war in the American establishment, whatever the Iranians did.
Of course an American might not have actually pulled the trigger, but the U.S. was a/the primary mover in many of these situations. IIRC, President Carter issued an executive order banning the assassination of foreign leaders.
This is a ridiculously optimistic, naïve, and shallow reading of the situation.
To better understand the current state of sectarian conflict, I highly recommend reading Kenneth Pollack's recent Brookings essay. [0] To quote:
>Indeed, both the civil wars and the spillover they generate have also produced a general mobilization of the Middle East’s Shiites, instigated and led by Iran. And that includes the Shiites in the Saudi kingdom. Officials in private and press reports occasionally note that hundreds of Saudi security service personnel have been killed and wounded in operations in the Eastern Province, the home to the vast majority of the kingdom’s Shiites. Americans tend not to pay attention to these operations because we see them as proof that the Saudis have things well in hand; but another way to look at it is that the Saudis are fighting pitched battles with someone in the cities of the Eastern Province. In other words, there seems to be a much higher degree of mobilization and violent confrontation among the Saudi Shiites than most realize.
[0] http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2016/01/08-fear-...
I'm not saying that our relations will in any way reduce the two sides' hatred for each other. The US now has a vested interest in reducing tensions between Sunnis and Shiites.
If we have a diplomatic partner on one side of the fight (e.g. only the Saudis), our response must be to either support their interests in the region or stay out of it. If we have interests on both sides, our options are to either push for peace or to play the sides against each other in hopes of chaos and a mutual weakness.
We may end up pushing for the latter, as was the case in the Iran-Iraq war, but with a shared enemy in the Islamic State and our long-overdue recognition that chaos hurts our own security and economic interests, it is in our own self-interest that we advocate for stability.
Let me be clear: both Iran and Saudi Arabia are ruled by theocratic despots. They will continue to revile each other and assert themselves in the region. But it is far easier to turn a blind eye on their bad behaviour when we have no other option (both in SA and Pakistan.)
PS: the fact that Iran knows how to play the Western media, speaking in terms that resonate with Western audiences, is very troubling.
The best solution for that whole region is more secular governments. That will not happen because the only one is Jewish. The only other thing is to be neutral in this whole sunni-shia divide. If they want to fight and kill over whether to follow the son-in-law or father-in-law of muhammad we cannot stop them but the US should not be a part of it. If that means giving some leeway to Iran I think we should do that instead of coming exclusively on the side of Sunni arabs.
More secular governments would be a good thing, but that's not really going to happen. See Shadi Hamid's writings on the matter. Essentially, the future of the Muslim Middle East is more illiberalism and more Islamism.
As you mentioned, currently the only democracy in the ME is Israel, though I have hope for a secular and democratic Kurdistan. I've heard whispers that the main reason the US isn't backing an independent Kurdistan separating from Iraq is the worry that the lack of the Kurds as a moderating force on Iraq will enable Iran to fully control the state (more so than it already does), essentially allowing it to become an Iranian client state.
Being neutral in the Sunni-Shi'a divide is functionally impossible for a number of reasons, but to easily understand why it's impossible, just try to imagine what neutrality in that context would actually look like. There's no answer that all sides would agree is neutral. The US has to be a part of it because the US has no choice - Americans benefit from the US dominated world order (as do most other people of the world). When you're a superpower with stakes in virtually every matter, even inaction is an action; even not choosing is a choice.
Enabling Iran hurts American interests. Iran is a destabilizing force, rather than a status quo power. Iran has had, and continues to have a choice: is it a movement, or is it a respectable state? It's leaders have consistently chosen to be a movement, exporting its revolution wherever it can, and upending the region and the world according to its vision. And let's not forget, a part of that vision is the annihilation of America's one reliable ally in the region, Israel, and the murder of all of its Jewish inhabitants.
We can only say that Iran acts rationally if we understand its motives. Its leaders view power and geopolitics as a zero-sum game, and it cannot win as long as the US, Israel, and the Sunnis are not dominated by its Shi'a axis.
I don't actually think that the Rouhani administration is any more moderate than the hardliners - just more strategic. Their goals align with the conservatives goals, but they are more willing to take a conciliatory tone with the West, even if it is only tone and not strategic realignment. So, then if it's just a matter of how to achieve hegemony - whether by direct conflict (hardliners) or subversion and manipulation of the West (Rouhani), does it really benefit the West to empower the moderates? Obviously, I think not. Besides, the Rouhani government is also just acting as political cover for Iran's other operations, whereby Rouhani and Zarif play good cop, while the IRGC and alike play bad cop.
The Sunni status quo powers (which does not include Qatar) are in de facto alignment with Israel because the biggest threat to both is the Iranian destabilization (mostly via proxy forces). Iran understands that if its actions empower Sunni radicals to the detriment of relatively moderate Sunnis, Iran wins, because then it positions itself as a bulwark against radical Sunni Islamism - even if its actions help create the environment conducive to those forces gaining strength.
As for 'meddling' in the Syria conflict being pro-Sunni, I just disagree. The Assad regime is the biggest draw for Sunni violent extremism, and the longer Iran enables Assad's slaughter of his people, the biggest the problem is going to be for the West.
As for Syria I completely disagree, this version that Assad is slaughtering his people as if he is another demon with nothing better to do is just more US propaganda. He was fighting rebels but was just not careful and there are many civilian casualties. We don't need another headless state for radicals to occupy. The US meddled in Iraq, Libya and now is strengthening ISIS even more by destroying the sovereign nation (Syria) that is fighting it. If the US has a problem with Syria, then Congress should debate and then declare war on it. Talk of no-fly zones is ridiculous. We only don't like Syria because they are close to Iran. Saudi has reportedly pumped $700 million into rebel groups. Supporting these Sunni extremists and then claiming to also fight ISIS is foolish. Saudi and their coalition are attempting to establish their Sunni Islam across the middle east. And that is not better than Iran. At least in Congress Tulsi Gabbard is the one congressperson saying we need to let Assad stay and focus efforts on ISIS.
So, the Saudi Regime does a lot of absolutely abhorrent shit, and so do it's people. But without the regime we'd probably be in a worse-off place.
>delivers weapons and money to radical islamists in Syria which fuels the civil war
The civil war is being fuelled by Iran's support for the Assad regime, both directly and by it's proxy, Hezbollah. The draw for radicals to fight in Syria is the Assad regime.
>SA that hangs a shiite cleric as an atempt to sabotage the atom deal
I definitely wouldn't say that the execution of Nimr was an attempt to sabotage the nuclear deal. There's really no evidence of that, and it's illogical because there's almost no way it could do that. Read the Pollack article above to understand the likely reason as to why SA killed him.
I can't believe I'm hear almost defending Saudi Arabia. I just think they're less despicable than Iran, but both are absolutely abhorrent. Both regimes push their own version of violent Islamism and are a pox on the world.
I think the SA regime is the single biggest reason why the population is still stuck in the middle ages (but what do you expect of a regime that treats woman like second class citizen). The money from oil might hide this fact a bit but SA has virtually no cultural or civilizing accomplishments
>The civil war is being fuelled by Iran's support for the Assad regime, both directly and by it's proxy, Hezbollah.
Iran and Russia have supported Assad way before the civil war started. 6 years ago I was in Damascus and Deir ez-Zor and there was no signs of a civil war. Don't get me wrong, the Assad regime is restrictive and brutal but if those radical jihadists supported by SA, Katar and Turkey win, it will be much much worse. Just take the groups hat were invited to the "opposition talks" in Riad (Jaysh al-Islam, etc). If you watch the videos on liveleak you see all those groups running around with TOWs and modern weapons.
> definitely wouldn't say that the execution of Nimr was an attempt to sabotage the nuclear deal.
What else was it ? Killing a important shiite cleric is nothing but fueling the secterian conflict and the reaction was the descruction of the SA embassy in Teheran. Luckily the Iranian government (especially the moderate ones like Rohani,Zarif) decided not to escalate further. But this was a clear attempt to provocate a stupid reaction from the iranian side. Nimr was no threat to SA and if you really think that a cleric is thread to a regime like SA, then it's probably better if this regime vanishes rather earlier than later.
> I just think they're less despicable than Iran
If you really think that, then you don't know much about Iran or its history. Apart from the fact that Iran is one of the oldest cultures in the world, the population and especially woman are highly educated. In SA until recently woman couldn't even drive or vote or go out without a male accompanying them. 2009 millions of young iranians went to the streets to protest against voter fraud and before the revolution, Iran was a quite free and progressive. So even tough the regimes might be both religious fanatics, Iran is still light years ahead of SA in terms of civil society and culture.
I'm not sure if the regime is the reason for the repressive Islamist culture of Saudi Arabia. While they enforce the Wahhabi establishment's strict version of Sharia, the regime draws its legitimacy from the religious establishment. Essentially, my guess is that the SA regime is actually a pretty accurate reflection of the will of the Sunni majority, and might even be more moderate than the populace. If we're talking about treating women like second-class citizens, Iran is definitely in the same boat, even if they have moderately more rights than do women in SA.
>Iran and Russia have supported Assad way before the civil war started. 6 years ago I was in Damascus and Deir ez-Zor and there was no signs of a civil war. Don't get me wrong, the Assad regime is restrictive and brutal but if those radical jihadists supported by SA, Katar and Turkey win, it will be much much worse. Just take the groups hat were invited to the "opposition talks" in Riad (Jaysh al-Islam, etc).
The historical alignment of Russia and Iran with the Assad regime isn't the problem. What draws in the foreign fighters and what pushes relative moderates (essentially non- or semi-Islamists) in Syria to join the most extreme religious groups is the continuous barbarity of the Assad regime. Needless to say, without the support of Iran, and to a lesser degree, Russia, the Assad regime would have likely folded long ago, and the domination of the opposition groups by Sunni radicals would have been far less likely to have occurred. That's not to let Qater, Turkey, and SA off the hook. Those three countries (especially Qatar and Turkey) are definitely guilty of supporting Islamists, but the size of the opportunity for them to do so was largely contingent on the draw of the fight with Assad's regime.
>What else was it ? Killing a important shiite cleric is nothing but fueling the secterian conflict and the reaction was the descruction of the SA embassy in Teheran.
I think that Kenneth Pollack's article (cited above) is worth the read to fully understand why SA executed Nimr, but here is another excerpt to answer your question:
"So, the Saudis are scared of the rising tide of popular mobilization and Shiite mobilization; they are scared by their loss of control over the oil market and what that is forcing them to do domestically; they are scared by the spillover from the region’s civil wars and the costs that they are being forced to bear to try to prevent that spillover from affecting them; and they are scared that we are abandoning them for Iran. The Saudis’ world, in other words, is pretty scary. And their modus operandi today is the same as it always has been: to lash out to try to beat back the threats that they see and regain control of their circumstances. Hence their stunning intervention in Yemen, their constant escalation in Syria, and now this latest flare-up with Iran."
I'd actually argue that the destruction of the SA embassy was a tremendous provocation by Iran. The destruction of diplomatic embassies is a huge no-no, and just goes to show how callously the Iranian regime treats its commitments under international law and reasonable morality. The destruction was certainly sanctioned by high levels of the Iranian government, and the police did nothing to quell the violence until it was already too late.
>If you really think that, then you don't know much about Iran or its history. Apart from the fact that Iran is one of the oldest cultures in the world, the population and especially woman are highly educated. In SA until recently woman couldn't even drive or vote or go out without a male accompanying them. 2009 millions of young iranians went to the streets to protest against voter fraud and before the revolution, Iran was a quite free and progressive. So even tough the regimes might be both religious fanatics, Iran is still light years ahead of SA in terms of civil society and culture.
I don't think I ever made the argument that Saudi Arabia's populace was more modern or liberal than Iran's. It's the Iranian regime that I'm critiquing (though, admittedly, the Iranian regime does draw significant support from its populace). Assuredly, the Iranian people and their culture are more admirable that Saudi's, but they're not the policy-makers.
Well if you treat half of the population like second class citizen, then you shouldn't be suprsided about the repressive culture. This is a vicious circle. How should the culture improve if the government provides such as role model ?
> If we're talking about treating women like second-class citizens, Iran is definitely in the same boat,
Sorry but that must be a huge boat, because women in Iran can vote, drive a car, travel alone, etc.
> The historical alignment of Russia and Iran with the Assad regime isn't the problem.
I won't argue that the Assad regime is terrible but fueling the oppositions with weapons and money was a huge mistake. But we tend to make mistakes over and over again (see Libya). Also where do you draw the line ? What about the civil war in the east of turkey ?
> So, the Saudis are scared of the rising tide of popular mobilization and Shiite mobilization
I want to add to this that SA is mostly afraid of the economic rise of Iran once the sanctions are lifted and rightly so. I really don't believe that the timing of the execution of Nimr was a coincidence. SA did everything they could to stop the atom deal, so I would't be suprised that they would also use those means to sabotage it.
It might be true that the destruction of the embassy was sanctioned by high levels or at least tolerated, but the iranian government and politics is not as homogeneous as one might think. You have moderate people like Rohani and Katami and then also extremist like Khamanei (although he recently also condemned the descruction of the embassy) and Ahmadinejad.
I would even claim Iran is probably the country in the middle east with one of the most repressive regimes but with the most tolerant populace
As an aside, when I see hyperbole like that in a comment, I stop reading. I assume the reader is just ranting (and I really don't need to read yet another rant on the Internet) and even the valuable content is going to have subtle facts, analysis and judgement sacrificed for dramatic overstatement.
(Sorry to pick on this comment, I know it's a widespread phenomenon.)
What's happening is nothing but appeasement.
Don't take my word for it, this wiki article is a good starting point for more information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...
Do you realize the US funded Sadam Hussein in a war against Iran?
Do you realize the US invaded Iraq?
Do you realize the US has supported terrorist Muslim organizations when they benefited from that? The most recent example the "moderate fighters" against al-Assad whose American weapons ended in hands of the most fanatical ISIS groups.
Imperial ambitions? Let me ask you something: What the Hell is doing the US of America tens of thousands of miles afar from his country? For me Imperial ambitions applies to other countries much better than Iran.
You have to understand the context in which that happened. It had only been a few years since the Soviets tested their first nuke. Stalin had just died that same year. The Soviet-allied Tudeh Communist Party in Iran was infiltrating the military and political establishment. There was no way that the West was going to let the Soviets gain another foothold. The Soviets were masters of infiltration and political intrigue. You should read up on how they turned Eastern Europe into satellite states. I'm not informed enough to pass judgment of the Iranian coup, but suffice to say, it's not a clear-cut issue.
> The Soviets were masters of infiltration and political intrigue. You should read up on how they turned Eastern Europe into satellite states.
I don't know about that particular example: I believe the E. European client states were occupied by the Red Army after WWII, dominated by secret police services, and later when they rebelled in Hungary and Czechoslovakia the tanks were sent back in. Not much intrigue needed.
But they did manage to acquire allies in many parts of the world, so generally I'd agree they seemed good at it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc#Concealed_transfo...
Roosevelt was fooled too. This is what he wrote to one of his diplomats in 1943, before the war was over: "I think that if I give [Stalin] everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace."
That quote is unbelievable for someone so experienced in war and politics (but I see it has a good-looking cite in Wikipedia) Thanks. Wow.
I've heard it said by people who meet politicians they despise: 'They were actually very nice!'. Politicians need to win people over in seconds, which is all the time they will have with most of them. If they rise to high levels, they probably are very good at it.
Stalin was (I assume) a leader of the Bolsheviks from when they were a nothing grassroots organization through taking over a large country through a successful revolution and coup, and then later defeating the Nazi army and controlling one of the largest empires in the history of the world. I don't think you can pull that off without exceptional interpersonal skills.
It also reinforces that there is little relationship between being someone you like and being a good leader. The very worst were highly charismatic - how else could they get millions of people to do such horrible, irrational things?
Who is brutal, and who is trying to dictate?
No, when was that government "democratically elected"?
EDIT: Removed bickering that was distracting from my real question
"A startled CIA reported to the White House that "an unexpectedly strong surge of popular and military reaction to Prime Minister Mossadeq's government has resulted, according to the latest dispatches from Tehran, in the virtual occupation of the city by forces professing their loyalty to the Shah and to his appointed Prime Minister Zahedi."
I'm not saying US didn't get it's hands dirty, but to assume that Iran would be a peaceful, democratic country otherwise is being naive.
I make no assumptions about how peaceful and democratic any country in the Middle East would be, with or without US involvement.
>Mossadeagh, before the Shah.
When was he elected. Or if it's like the british system, then when was the parliament that appointed him, elected?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh#Appointment... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_legislative_election,_...
The US has funded most of those very same groups, only at different points in time.
I doubt you can even name one of those groups that the US has ever funded let alone "most of them"
at best you can dishonestly bring up the afgahn mujahadeen to tenuously get to 2/5 of those groups
The US didn't "fund" the Taliban, but we have more than a little bit of culpability for it, as do several other countries.
Unfortunately for the implicit message board psyche, there are no simple good-guy bad-guy narratives in the Middle East/West Asia. "It's all just a bunch of guys."
Many people think many things, many of them are wrong. What do you think?
I believe there's no worse party in the entire ME region than Turkey.
They might be a NATO ally, but for years they have e.g. allowed free influx of foreign fighters and arms into the region and export of oil back into Turkey, thus directly fueling the rise of IS. (Granted, Saudi Arabia with sponsoring Wahhabite islam propaganda all over Europe also had its part)
Also, Erdogan is rapidly transforming Turkey to an Islamist dictatorship... and he's using the Syrian refugees as a weapon against Europe. Europe pays 3B € and Europe looks away from him turning into a dictator and massacring Kurds as long as he keeps the refugees in Turkey.
If Erdogan were to truly unleash the millions of refugees, Europe would be screwed. Europe couldn't manage the 2m refugees last year without nearly falling apart, another 2m (or more!) would break up the EU.
It's common knowledge that Iran supports groups that have committed terrorist acts.
There's a really powerful line in 1984 that has stuck with me: "He who controls the past, controls the future. He who controls the present, controls the past."
As with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, opening up countries to the world's economy and ideas is the first step towards democracy.
The implications of this are tremendous (not in order of importance):
1) Oil prices will continue to fall as Iran is able to supply the global markets. Many oil states rely on money from natural resources to preserve monarchies. Money for freedom only works so long as the money keeps flowing.
2) Our (US) reliance on Saudi Arabia will diminish as there are now two powers in the region to work with. Having strong relations with both Shiite and Sunni powers in the Middle East will likely reduce sectarian violence. We're light years from being out of the woods, but this is big step in the right direction.
3) The Iranian people will gain access to the world economy. From a human rights perspective, they are the biggest winners here. As with Sunni/Shiite relations, no doubt a long way to go (the Ayatollah is a tyrant,) but you gotta celebrate the wins when you can.
4) De-escalation of our conflict with Iran. We saw it with Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea. Invasion + nation building is sexy, but highly ineffective. Having one less nuclear power that calls for our destruction is certainly a nice to have.
5) Shows Americans that diplomacy can work. Iranians don't hate Americans, they hate what America represents. To them, we represent a superpower that gives little to no thought of anyone else's sovereignty. We assassinated their democratically elected leader and backed the Shah, which got us into this mess. Diplomacy is far less sexy and easily criticized, but that's a huge part of getting this deal done.
Note: Many of these are over-simplified. Nonetheless, this is a pretty big deal and a cause for celebration.