Why is it interesting? I thought the common people aren't responsible for the actions of their government?

From our perspective common people aren't responsible. But from the perspective of the person who wrote the "your decision to arm Russia" on their website it is.

So what is interesting is that this person is fully able to assign blame to individual Iranians for their government's actions but, one would imagine, is able to separate themselves from the actions of the US government.

I wrote "one would imagine" because there was no reply so we cannot say for sure. But my experience with Americans who do this "all Iranians/North Koreans/Syrians/Iraqis etc are bad!" thing is that they carve out little exceptions for themselves and the USA so that their reasons to hate others never seem to apply to themselves.

Ironic that you're blaming all Americans but then claim no other country has any agency

I think you'd do well to re-read my comments because that's not what I'm saying at all. I suspect you're more upset because I've touched a nerve. Because this is something that many Americans (and fellow Brits, I might add) are guilty of, and cannot really provide a proper justification for other than "but we're the good guys". They will often try to derail the discussion or argue to avoid confronting the uncomfortable truth

There's a certain irony in holding North Koreans or Chinese responsible for their governments' actions, but denying any responsibility for your own democratically-elected government's.

The common people are responsible for the actions of their government in a democracy, are they not? The issue is that Iran isn't a democracy, it's a theocratic dictatorship — the people are explicitly not able to be responsible for the actions of their government.

To be honest the argument works even if Iran was a democracy. Both governments doing evil stuff but only the citizens of one of those countries is absolved of blame. That alone should cause someone reasonable to pause and ask themselves if they're not being a bit ridiculous.

The fact that Iran is pretty authoritarian and undemocratic just makes the position even more absurd and drives the point home further.

The US is a democracy.

The common people are responsible for the actions of their government in a democracy.

The US killed 400+ Million people in the past two centuries.

Therefore I hate all Americans.

> The US killed 400+ Million people in the past two centuries.

I have trouble believing this is true by any definition that leaves any large group of people unhated.

i dont think thats really accurate. its theocratic and authoritarian, but its not a dictatorship and they have democratic elements

the candidates are approved by a religious board, but its got a full set of checks and balances and allows for liberalization. The reality is that given a panel of candidates Iranians have often voted for the conservative candidate

i get there is a large amount of liberally minded people in big cities that feel disenfranchised.. but i wouldnt be surprised if the government is still highly popular with the majority of people

Comparing it to North Korea or China is way to simplistic

Where you get confused is with the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.

Pray tell how people in the US can control specifics of its foreign policy.

This is why the democracy-vs-dictatorship point is not one I think is worth arguing. Because while you can technically vote for president, senate, congress who have some say over that on your behalf, you still don't really decide anything.

I think however you'd both be in agreement about the broad thrust of the argument - that this is a slightly daft thing to lay at the feet of your average Iranian, who will already be perfectly aware of what its government gets up to.

>Because while you can technically vote for president, senate, congress who have some say over that on your behalf, you still don't really decide anything.

Even if there was a referendum in the US on whether to drone strike alleged drug traffickers or whatever, it's still a stretch to blame all Americans (with "your" language), because it's there's still a good chance that a given American visitor didn't actually vote for it.

The US is closer to a dictatorship than a democracy. Certainly now.

In properly democratic countries you would have more than 2 parties, with more than 2 viewpoints. You pick one that aligns with you, and they actually have a chance at winning.

This is not true and is nonsensical. The Iranian regime is explicitly anti-American, and it was American inaction that allowed them to rise to power. If America had intervened during the revolution, they could have eliminated the regime in its infancy and saved half a century of headaches and many lives lost due to Iranian wars and terror proxies.

The US also did not create political Islam, which predates the US by over 1000 years. Blaming the US for the problems of this region which has always had these problems is counter-factual. The problems of this part of the world - poverty, violence, religious oppression and dictatorships - predate western civilization as a whole, and in fact the oppressive empires from the Middle East / North Africa spread earlier and wider than western empires.

> If America had intervened during the revolution

Well they did intervene during the 1952 revolution. The secular democratic government wasn't very convenient so they basically undid the revolution and reinstalled the Shah in power. Then the second time the Shah was overthrown, it was done by Islamists, not by the secular elected parliament.

Third time's the charm, just one more revolution and we'll have it all sorted out, juuuuuust one more /s