Do you realize the US supported a coup against a democratically elected government in Iran?

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.

>Do you realize the US supported a coup against a democratically elected government in 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.

I think you raise excellent points. However, I could see Iranians being very angry that people in the U.S. government decided for the Iranian people that it was best that the Iranians should live under a brutal dictatorship. I can only imagine if the situation were reversed ...

> 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.

The military occupation was a big part of it, but the communists were able to seize control of the political process in Eastern European capitals without resorting to overt military coercion. They made it look like the Eastern European states were free to choose their own paths. By the time people realized what was happening, it was too late.

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."

> 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.

Here's a great interview with Stephen Kotkin, Princeton professor, about Stalin: http://www.hoover.org/research/hoover-fellow-stephen-kotkin-... . He was apparently a very charismatic and likable guy. The interview convinced me to buy the book.

Thanks! I've seen several times people be surprised that some horrible leader was charismatic.

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?

It's a controlled democracy, it's not brutal and it's not a dictatorship[1]. What gives U.S. the right besides it's carrier groups to say what kind of government the Iranian people should live under? The head of state the Iranian people last officially recorded as having overwhelmingly supported in 1979 is more legitimate than any kind of leader or government U.S. might say they would like to foist onto the Iranian people. The U.S. has indirectly caused multiple times more deaths and suffering in Iran that it's current government ever did.

Who is brutal, and who is trying to dictate?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_parties_in_Iran

I think you misunderstood my comment.

You're right, yes I did. Thanks.

A terrorist nation from the very beginning.

>Do you realize the US supported a coup against a democratically elected government in Iran?

No, when was that government "democratically elected"?

EDIT: Removed bickering that was distracting from my real question

Mossadeagh, before the Shah. His ousting was the cause of resentment that fuelled the rise of Iran's political system today. You can google when that happened and read the history from then to now and see its all connected.

Mossadeagh was about to be booted by his own people. There were mass protests as he had become very unpopular. Claims the US had a hand in his downfall is being very generous.

It's possible that he was very unpopular. I'm pretty sure it's confirmed from CIA papers since released that the mobs of protesters were organized, paid for and in some cases paid by the CIA, so there's at least an argument that his unpopularity was purchased.

The protests against Mossadegh included tens of thousands of Iranians. Is it possible to create that kind of unpopularity out of thin air using money?[1]

"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.

[1]http://www.cfr.org/iran/myth-american-coup/p30900

I don't think they paid all of them, no, but I think it's entirely possible to fund a group of organizers who could motivate a significant-sized protest.

I make no assumptions about how peaceful and democratic any country in the Middle East would be, with or without US involvement.

So instead of electing someone else, they would install a shah?

The Shah already existed. He just used his power to dismiss Mossadegh (which was constitutional).

Reply to meric, since it won't let me.

>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?

He became Prime Minister in 1951 after his party, the National Front, won a majority in the Iranian Parliament (the Majlis).

As best I can make make out he was appointed in 1951[1], as per the British system, by the parliament elected in 1950[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh#Appointment... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_legislative_election,_...

My understanding is that the Shah nominated him and he was approved by the elected Majlis. By the time of the coup, though, Mosaddegh had dissolved parliament and was able to unilaterally declare laws by fiat.

> Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents, the Taliban, these are just some of the groups that Iran has funded

The US has funded most of those very same groups, only at different points in time.

[citation needed]

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

Really incredible to me that my comment and the one below are downvoted more than the one parent which is a blatant lie

This is absolutely false. The US has never supported Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and especially not the insurgency that was attacking us in Iraq. Yes, the US helped the Mujahideen fight off a Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, and unfortunately some of them went on to be part of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. That's not at all comparable.

The Taliban was formed because the "mujahideen" we funded to bleed the Soviets replaced Soviet-sponsored dictatorships with an almost lawless feudalism controlled by brutal warlords who we did, indeed, fund. The Taliban was an order-restoring reaction to an untenable situation we helped create.

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."

I'd say it's all a bunch of bad guys, down to everyone who has any sort of political power. The further the guy try to interfere in matters away from their home, the badder the guy. That would make the US officials involved in training terrorists in Syria and invading Iraq just about the worse, and the village farmers in India who interferes with nothing except his plot, not even his family, the least bad.

Ehem ? http://i.imgur.com/qdCuOIk.jpg

Many around the world would consider the USA worse in this regard than iran

>Many around the world would consider the USA worse in this regard than iran

Many people think many things, many of them are wrong. What do you think?

I think that those many are mostly correct. The US has funded those it knows will sign contracts with US companies to purchase arms (mostly, construction and oil deals also). They may even prove to be correct in the Iran situation too. Time will tell.

I think being able to trade and move is good and builds cultural bridges which assists demilitarisation

As opposed to our dear friends, the Saudis?

The Saudis are no angels. They proselytize their form of radical Islam around the world. Internally, they are a repressive oligarchy ruled by the royal family and the radical clerics. Private donors from Saudi Arabia contribute a huge amount to terrorism. These are huge problems and the Saudis shouldn't get a pass on it, but it's not comparable to the Iranian government sponsoring civil wars across the Middle East to build itself an empire.

> but it's not comparable to the Iranian government sponsoring civil wars across the Middle East to build itself an empire.

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.

What's happening in Turkey really breaks my heart. It reminds me of Fareed Zakaria's book The Future of Freedom, about the phenomenon of illiberal and failed democracies. His thesis is that democratization can't succeed without liberalization first, brought about by economic and social development. And that democracy, anyhow, is a lesser good than constitutional liberalism. That the ballot box is less important than the impartial judge and guarantee of liberties. This is difficult for us who believe in both freedom and democracy to swallow. Where would Turkey be today without Ataturk? And what if his dictatorship survived to the current day, would that be better than the populist, democratically-elected, Erdogan?

That would be fun to watch. What goes around comes around, EU.

I'm kind of surprised you're getting downvoted so bad. Your tone may have been over the top, but I don't see anything factually wrong.

It's common knowledge that Iran supports groups that have committed terrorist acts.

Sometimes the truth can be very hard for people to accept. Western academia, media, and press all turned a blind eye to Soviet repression, gulags, and purges up until the late 40s and early 50s. George Orwell, a leftist, had a very hard time getting Homage to Catalonia published because it portrayed the Soviet-backed Republican forces in Spain in a very unfavorable light. The Western intellectual elite was infatuated with Communism and didn't want to deal with facts that contradicted their neat world view.

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."