On the other hand people from all over the world travel to Egypt to experience the product of ancient theocratic regimes.

Is ancient egypt actually considered a theocracy, rather than a monarchy? Also, I think the parent poster's point is that theocracies fell out of fashion a long time ago.

Not even close. What they want is their natural resources. Nobody in USA gives a crap about Iranian people's problems.

Iran had a democratic leader. He was toppled in a 1953 coup and replaced by their last monarch, who was himself overthrown by the Islamic revolution in 1979.

That 1953 coup was orchestrated by the United States (TPAJAX Project or "Operation Ajax") and the United Kingdom ("Operation Boot"), because the leader was too far left from them. The name Ajax refers to cleansing communist influence, because Iran wanted to nationalise the oil controlled by what is now a part of BP.

This is why the US has sanctioned Norway?

As near as I can tell the criteria for the us government getting involved is you have natural resources and you mistreat your people. Neither one alone seems to be sufficient.

>As near as I can tell the criteria for the us government getting involved is you have natural resources and you mistreat your people. Neither one alone seems to be sufficient.

the US seems to be pretty chill about saudi arabia, which does have oil and mistreats people. I'm sure the rest of the countries around that region aren't exactly a bastion of human rights either.

Thats because the US requires juvenile moral arguments to maintain support for things that have nothing to do with juvenile moral arguments.

It derives it’s power from a population that has little history, prophecies or goals in common, so childish moral high ground is all it has to continue stewarding its massive resource appropriation efforts.

The US is involved in Saudi Arabia though, just as an ally instead of an enemy.

> As near as I can tell the criteria for the us government getting involved is you have natural resources and you mistreat your people. Neither one alone seems to be sufficient.

Surely, you must be aware of the history of US involvement in Iran.

How do you reconcile the difference between the reality of US foreign policy, and your idealized view of its foreign policy?

Iran has always has always had policies that the US populace would consider mistreating people. Sure their "intervention" didn't help (it generally doesn't) and in fact made things worse, but the conditions were satisfied.

if (has(flammable_liquid) && does_mistreat_people()) { make_people_suffer_more(); }

I don't see any relation between two inputs of that and gate.

Norway shares oil revenue with UK and EU companies and therefore has strong defense against colonialist USA.

If you want to think about causality here it would be more like:

    Group a:
    If(has(flammable_liquid))
        Try to acquire it

    Group b:
    If(behaves morally)
        Prevent group A from causing suffering

The group consisting of both a and b act like what you describe, but not because that's rational behavior.

Sorry but it's never that simple.

Iran is very different than Norway. Iran was actually a friendly ally to US. Biggest ally in the region. So close that US designed a coup to overthrow Iranian democratically elected leader in favor of the monarchical rule of the Shah.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

Problem started when Iran became a founding member of OPEC. And Shah was controlling (raising) oil prices with his influence at the OPEC.

"NYT: Shah warning US and UK to increase oil price in 70s": https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/20/archives/shah-warns-oil-p...

Their relationship was damaged to the point that US intentionally didn't support Shah during Iranian revolution and he was overthrown and replaced by Islamic Republic of Iran. There are even conspiracy theories that suggest CIA even did aid the revolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi#Criticis...

And after that a few more events completely destroyed their relationship.

"Siege of the American embassy in Tehran" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

"Siege of the Iranian embassy in London" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Embassy_siege

"US supporting Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, and during the Iraq-Iran war"

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

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

"Iran Air Flight 655"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Both sides had many many more since then and the last major one was US withdrawal from JCPOA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac...

Is Iran a good democratic country now? No!

Do they deserve it? I don't think so.

What does one have to do with the other?