IRAN - An inevitable clash of civilizations just up ahead (1953-1979)

Terry

Satan peeks over the horizon in Qatar :)

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Once upon a time French and British politicians drew up

arbitrary borders on a map of the Middle East, post WWI.

So what?

Civilizations were uprooted.

Anthills were stomped.

So what?

So this. Thousands of years of blood feuds. That's what.

As T.E.Lawrence said (channeled by Peter O'Toole)

" You are a little people, a silly people: greedy, barbarous, and cruel."

Tsk Tsk. If anybody said that these days, he'd be called "racist."

British and French politicians were certainly that!

The United States played catch-up. Especially when OIL was discovered. Uh-oh!

C.I.A. overthrow of Iran's elected government in 1953 ensured Western control of Iran's petroleum resources and prevented the Soviet Union from competing for Iranian oil.

FULL STOP.

Payback was inevitable.

But when?

1979. Allāhu akbar (“God is great”)

THEOCRACY replaced politics in Iran thru revolution.

Time for Payback begins!

The November 1979 seizure of 66 hostages at the U.S. embassy by a group of Iranian protesters demanding the extradition of the shah led to his ouster.

It has been downhill for U.S. Presidents ever since.

The score never gets settled because the C.I.A. won't leave the Middle East to its own internal struggles.

Tribe against tribe, a "silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel" is how British and American governments view the oil rich people.

To Iranians, the West won't mind its own business.

We in America are devils, infidels, and deserve death.

The Military Industrial Complex gets rich no matter what happens politically.

Those billions buy plenty of cooperation with our Media and in the House and Senate.

Research who voted for the War in Iraq.

See any familiar names?

What's coming is bought and paid for since 1953.

No matter whom you elect, the result is the same.

Let us not be naive.

The Obama Administration pulled out of Iraq. Obama listened when the Iran-dominated Shiah government said, "Get out of Iraq."

They said, "Okay." They got out.

They didn't renew the Status of Forces Agreement.

WHAT ENDED UP HAPPENING?

The rise of ISIS, the Sunnis - disaster in Kurdistan, Syria ...

et cetera ...

We're screwed - no matter what decisions are made and regardless of which administration makes them.

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Agree?
Disagree?

road to nowhere

You can go back further. The tribes always fueded there and always will.

The one thing WT got partly right is the dominance of Anglo American powers even if they do keeping changing details about dates and significance.

Without oil the whole place would be left alone and we would still fantasize about exotic harems. If any of us actually got into a harem we would pay dearly.

shepherdless

My 2c worth:

disagree with parts, agree with others.

Firstly, the area that the Brits and the French divided up after WW1 was the Levant, ie Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Also Iraq. These were all under the loose control of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Iran was separate and already under the influence of the Brits as part of “the great game”. Iranians are insulted if you call them Arab. They are a different people, with a different language and culture.

I agree that the Brits and then USA behaved appallingly in relation to Iran after the Second World War. Won’t go into the history, but appalling. Corporate economic interests trumped a promising democracy.

Part of the promise of Ayatollah Khomeini returning to Iran and the deposing of the Shah in 1979, was the restoration of democracy. Instead they got a brutal theocracy with a weak elected parliament and a president with little power. It has been evolving into more a democracy, but it has been a case of 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. The last general election virtually wiped out every hardliner from every significant elected government position. (By the way, what defines a hardliner over there, depends on what issue is being discussed, so it is complicated.)

The following is what I have learnt, primarily from Talking to Iranians:

Despite the theocracy, and the various rules and restrictions, citizens, particularly in urban areas side step the rules. Unusually in that part of the world, they struggle to get younger people to attend mosques for Friday prayers etc.

It is simply untrue that they are natural enemies of USA. They are enemies because of 1979 in particular. Their theology is Shiite (only 10 to 15% of muslims are Shiite) and Iran is the leading Shiite country in the world. They tolerate Christians, Zoastrians and Sunnis in their midst (although Sunnis keep a low profile). Jews were virtually wiped out or left in the mid-20th Century. Members of the Baha’i faith are persecuted and are not allowed to attend university.

From what I have read in their media: They hate ISIS, Taliban and Al Qadea. No other religious group has suffered from ISIS as Shiites, because all hard line Sunnis regard Shiites as infidels. In Pakistan, for instance, on days of Shiite religious festivals they used to turn off the mobile phone networks to reduce the number of remote bombings, such is the hostility between the two branches of Islam.

During the height of the fight against ISIS, I read Iranian media which included conspiracy theories about ISIS being a creation of the CIA to kill Shiites, and allegations of secret flights from USA providing arms to ISIS to help them. This might all seem absurd to us, but it was in their media, and gives you an idea of how they see things.

in short, Iran is not a natural enemy of the West. It is the enemy due to unfortunate historical circumstances. History writers in the future will struggle to explain why USA was so keen to be friends with Saudi Arabia, where almost all the funding and theology for radical Islam has arisen from, and enemies against what should have been a natural ally.

shepherdless

PS: I an not saying the Iranian Govt are good guys. Far from it. Just trying to explain the dynamics.

cofty

Excellent summary Shep thanks

LoveUniHateExams

Yeah, good comments, Shepherdless.

in short, Iran is not a natural enemy of the West - yeah, the Iranian masses, the ordinary people aren't.

But the current Iranian government clearly is. It has killed and attacked US soldiers in Iraq.

truth_b_known

There is nothing worse than a do-gooder. They are like the monkey that saved a fish from drowning by scooping the fish from the water and placing it in a tree. We believe democracy is the greatest form of government, so much so that we tell other countries they better adopt it or we will shoot them.

If we want to do some real good in the middle east, the west must completely abandon all fossil fuels and remove its military presence.

redvip2000

If we want to do some real good in the middle east, the west must completely abandon all fossil fuels and remove its military presence.

I could not have said it better. After all, once that hell hole loses its appeal to the west because of oil, we can finally leave those people to their own devices. Eventually they too will evolve into enlightenment and hopefully start living 2020 lives. For now, they are stuck in the middle ages.

Terry

This was an interesting article I found which addresses the "enemy" aspect of Iran vis a vis the U.S.
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WAS IRAN BEHIND Nine Eleven? If so, how much and how?

"Three rare testimonies by three Iranian intelligence establishment defectors have been marked as witnesses X, Y and Z. Their videotaped testimonies offer a profound peek into the depths of the kingdom of evil. For long hours they recount their childhood and adolescence in Tehran and how they were hired for the prestigious posts in Iran’s spy agencies. Then, they start talking about the ties between Iran, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.

Witness X testifies about Iran’s advance knowledge of the plan to crash passenger airliners into strategic targets in Washington and New York. He testifies that he was present at training facilities for Sunni terrorists in Iran and adds many details about the way Iran’s intelligence service utilizes legitimate Iranian organizations such as its airline and shipping company for terror aims.

Witness Y testifies about Imad Mugniyah’s personal involvement in training the September 11 hijackers and the shelter granted by Iran to al-Qaeda’s men after the attacks. Meanwhile, witness Z says that he was present in a series of meetings in Tehran involving senior al-Qaeda men, local intelligence officials and Mugniyah’s men in the months before the 9/11 attacks."

(Source: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4120430,00.html

This source is a national daily newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Israel. Founded in 1939 in Mandatory Palestine, Yedioth Ahronoth has been the largest newspaper in Israel by sales and circulation

Simon

If we want to do some real good in the middle east, the west must completely abandon all fossil fuels and remove its military presence.

That's great, a sound plan ... just one teensy weensy issue - billions would die.

OK, your "final solution" is now something that a lot of people are advocating, but all that happens is that misguided do-gooder leaders like Canada's Trudeau turns off the taps to their own, ethically produced and clean oil supply, but oil is still needed so ... they import Saudi oil instead.

Crazy eh? But that's what you get when you follow stupid social media inspired policies and virtue signal instead of doing what would really benefit both the environment and the regional politics. Remove power from the Ayatollahs and let the mob have at them.

Real Iranian people don't hate the US, what you see on TV is the Islamic extremists who took over because of past bad policy. But the secular trouble in the region was always going to be a problem because of the old empires collapse - we didn't cause it, as much as some may like to believe, but what are we supposed to do? Just step aside and let the bloodbath happen?

A plan that just has the option between millions dead or billions dead isn't such a great plan.

IRAN - An inevitable clash of civilizations just up ahead (1953-1979)

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