>It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations.

Saudis have a looooong history of funding all kinds of terrorist groups across the whole muslim world.

Sure. They basically created and funded al Qaida in the 1980s to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Then bin Laden came back to Saudi Arabia and offered to help against Saddam when he invaded Kuwait, and the Saudis told him to go away. After that they became more enemies than friends, but with the weird twist that the Saudi government wants to appear ideologically relatively aligned with al Qaida, such that al Qaida has little support for overthrowing the house of Saud.

It's not just Qaida though, they sponsor all kinds of Sunni extremists all over the globe.

Regardless of the hijackers motives, Saudi Arabia is by far the worst country when it comes to exporting and supporting terror. Iran is an island of sanity by comparison, and there are no Shia terrorist organizations nowadays (Hezbollah are not terrorists - they don't blow up random civilians).

I suppose Rafic Hariri isn't "random" as he was after all Lebanon's democratically elect Prime Minister when Hezbollah assassinated him, but how about the 21 people who also died in that bombing?

I personally know a man who lost his wife (mother of their 3 kids) when Hezbollah bombed the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires. 85 civilians were killed, but then again mostly Jewish so not exactly "random" either.

It always amazes me how many Western activists approach the world like a Hollywood movie. If Saudis are bad, and Trump is bad, then obviously their Shia rivals must be good!

That is true but 21 to thousands that just die in Yemen or by Isis is not even considerable. I think we should compare them and not going to say that one is not bad at all. They are both are fundamentally against human freedom and liberal ideas, but one is so far worst.

Although I think if only west could stop buying their oils then they both will suffocate. There is not a single country with rich oil in the Middle-east that uses the money from oil for their people. They all have first and second class citizens.

Saeed Malekpour is still in prison, that alone for me makes Iran a no-go country. http://thenextweb.com/me/2012/01/19/death-sentence-for-irani...

Iran is horrible. It's a nightmare to live but it's much much better than Saudi

As an Iranian, I have to say it's mostly boring. This article, originally written about Malaysia, hits close to home:

https://tompepinsky.com/2017/01/06/everyday-authoritarianism...

What you hear in the news about Iran is not its everyday life. Imagine if you lived in a country where the only news you saw in the media about the US was violence and police brutality and just all the bad stuff. How would you have imagined it would be like to do something mundane, for example go down the street to buy some milk? You would have imagined that you would get mugged for sure, maybe shot during mugging, then tased by the police that decided to arrest you when you called 911 for an ambulance, and handed a million dollar bill for the hospital stay, and then you have to spend the next 30 years in a for-profit prison as a slave getting constantly sexually assaulted.

The interesting thing is Iranian media portrays the US in the same caricaturistic ‎manner that the US media portrays Iran. My family were legitimately concerned about my safety when I announced my intention to go to Texas for a PhD. Probably as worried as you would be if you had to move to Iran.

(I ended up going to Canada instead, so it's all good.)

I completely understand your point. It is boring and OK for average citizens but when we talk about states like Iran and Saudi, the context is more about your rights if you speak up against the governments, are some kind of activist or are part of a religious/ethnic minority. Life for that subgroup of people is not exactly the same as for the majority in such states. North Korea is an extreme example of this and India/Pakistan are mild examples. Iran and Saudi are somewhere in between.

this is so true. simple fact in face of all those years of propaganda against iran.

by no means are they some altruistic peace lovers, but considering other countries in the region, US could get much more if they would be allies since technically there are no obstacles (apart from 1979 US embassy issue, but nobody got killed, all released eventually... worse things happen, ie Behgazi and nobody cares if it serves some agenda).

If you go there nowadays, all the signs are in 2 languages - Farsi and English. Everybody speaks at least a bit English. Compared to say France :)

>US could get much more if they would be allies since technically there are no obstacles

It's weird, it's almost like pioneering and supplying technology (VBIED's) to kill American troops, and founding terrorist organizations to kill American allies somehow sours the relationships between the two countries.

Sadr's death squads and Houthis.

If blowing up random civilians is the definition of terror then I'm sure the Syrian government would qualify.

"It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations."

I think that Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest problem in the world. In fact, I wish Trump would have banned them too or even suggested a regime change:

1. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/02...

2. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01...

For Iran I have high hopes. They started the fundamentalist bullshit and I have the impression they may be the first to get rid of it. In fact, there are first signs (German link, try google translate): https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

> For Iran I have high hopes. They started the fundamentalist bullshit

Please try to learn even the slightest thing about this subject before you make statements so confidently. Wahhabism started in Saudi Arabia in the early 20th century and spread due to Saudi oil money in the 30's and 40's. Meanwhile Iran was a pluralistic society right up until 1979.

Please try to learn even the slightest thing about this subject before you make statements so confidently.

While there is a tiny bit of truth in your statement, Saudi Arabia changed a lot in 1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure

Saudi King Khaled however, did not react to the upheaval by cracking down on religious puritans in general, but by giving the ulama and religious conservatives more power over the next decade. He is thought to have believed that "the solution to the religious upheaval was simple -- more religion." First, photographs of women in newspapers were banned, then women on television. Cinemas and music shops were shut down. School curriculum was changed to provide many more hours of religious studies, eliminating classes on subjects like non-Islamic history. Gender segregation was extended "to the humblest coffee shop". The religious police became more assertive.[

So it is up to debate, if Wahhabism really predates Islam extremism so far or at all. But regarding for Saudi Arabia I have little to no hope at all.

Again, to use your wording, Please try to learn even the slightest thing about this subject before you make statements so confidently.

So America shouldn't support a progressive Saudi monarchy attempting to break the control of their religious bloc, but instead support an Iranian regime dedicated to export their religious revolution. Makes sense.