The Iranian hardliners do a lot to stoke that flame too. Much like us, they have a polarized society. Their support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other problematic groups complicates things too. Add to that the fact that it would be tough to repair the rift with Iran, while managing our Saudi relationship.

All that said, I think it's a worthy undertakings to normalize relations with Iran. And selfishly, I look forward to the day when I can freely visit Persia as an American.

Honest question, how does Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas directly affect Americans? I'd argue that Saudi Arabia's support for ISIS and Al-Qaeda had more/actual negative effects on Americans.

Iran had nothing to do with 9/11. Perhaps you're thinking of Iraq, which also was not behind 9/11, but a similarly named country that we happened to go to war with shortly after 9/11.

Boy I hope you never get in a position of power where you also have access to history books.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

There's no street called "Broadway Ave" in NYC, so I think you might be full of shit.

Definitely not as dry-cut as you make it to be - with those same strokes then the US is sponsoring terrorism abroad with its role.

And you keep mentioning the fact you were "a couple miles" from 9/11, as if this somehow adds credibility to this directly-unrelated topic...

Are these supposed to make Israel sound good? Because to me, it sounds like Israel is doing the dirty, inhumane works for the US.

Since you haven't stopped despite repeated requests, I've banned this account until we get a guarantee that it won't do political flamewars again.

I suppose I need to add that this isn't any kind of position on Israel, Iran, the U.S., terrorism, 9/11, bombs, or wars. It's just a position about what sort of threads aren't ok on Hacker News. One could flip all the political bits in your comments and its status for HN purposes would be just the same.

My colleagues and I have a lot of empathy for the feelings of loyalty and love that drive a person to fight these battles. The feelings are important and the issues are important—much more important than Hacker News. Nevertheless the moderation job here is to protect HN as (1) a community and (2) a web forum dedicated to what gratifies intellectual curiosity. Nothing threatens that more than political battle, so we have to be proactive about this.

Please stop.

I'm down-voting you (and not only you, to be fair) because you are hell-bent on creating a discussion against Iranian politics in a thread about the tragic, early death of a brilliant mathematician who happened to be an Iranian-American (and also, more notably, a woman). It's not the time nor the place.

I didn't downvote you, but my guess would be the 9/11 remark, which doesn't seem to connect with the rest of your argument.

You've done more than anyone else to take this thread into flamewar hell. If HN can't discuss Maryam Mirzakhani without degenerating into a shitstorm about "the terrorist act of 9/11", then we've failed. It's time to stop this now and never do it on HN again.

We all have strong emotions about the life-and-death issues that affect our nations, tribes, and families (or feel like they do). Mostly such issues are off-topic on HN and their mesmerizing power needs to be resisted—or else every thread can easily become about nothing but that. Considering how fire consumes everything in its path the term 'flame+war' is strikingly apropos for the phenomenon, and every HN user is responsible for containing it.

As an Iranian, I can't wait for the day where the online post of my death – should I become half the person Maryam Mirzakhani was – mutates into an argument about Iran's ties to terrorism and 9/11.

You are either being purposely obtuse or don't see the hypocrisy of your statements regarding supporting terrorism and the US.

> You are either being purposely obtuse or don't see the hypocrisy

Personal attacks and incivility will get you banned here. Please don't post like this regardless of how unfair or wrong you think someone else is.

The majority of 9/11 attackers were Saudi:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_...

Iran is our natural ally in the region.

I hope you're right. I have met quite a few Iranians here in the States and it often leaves me feeling very sad that government & media rhetoric is so negative and narrow-sighted.

Another example of how the macro reality we create can become massively misaligned with ground-level truths.

Iran was a natural ally until the US dropped the gold standard and now it's in the middle of a proxy war with Russia for control of the trade of its oil and gas resources. That has led to a pretty massive disintegration of culture and governance. Go ahead and compare photos of Tehran in the 70s vs today.