All this talk about knocking out Iran’s nuclear industry is making me nervous. So I ask thj Condi Rices of the world: where is the beef? Show me actually waht Iran is doing to sponsor terrorism.
I believe the Mullahs of Iran are evil, and hate the USA. But I also belive that they are NOT stupid…they know full well how inferior they are in terms of military strenght. Why would they risk an armed conflict?It doesn’t make sense to me.
Iran was a major military sponsor of Hezbollah. Here’s a BBC profile of Hezbollah talking about their ties:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1908671.stm
Here’s a page from the Council on Foreign Relations talking about Iran’s link to terrorist groups:
Anti-Isreali? Fer sure. Anti-American? I don’t know.
Ummm…I can’t believe you don’t recall the Embassy hostages! :smack: :smack: :smack:
That was 20 years ago after all. I think that somewhere near half of Iranians alive today were toddlers or younger at that point.
Maybe someone will be so kind as to find us population break down.
Second, there’s a difference between being against American foreign policies and being against America in general. So answer may depend on the definitions used.
I think that there is an appreciation of many Western things, even if there’s a profound lack of affection for American foreign policies.
Blue Jeans & Rock ‘n’ Roll, baby.
As I understand it, resentment against the mullahs who took over after the Shah was overthrown (and pretty much run the country for their own benefit) has created an awful lot of pro-American sentiment in Iran, especially among the young. Obviously, the government is still very anti-American, though.
Oh yeah, from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty much a given that Iran sponsors terrorism.
Not so much against the US mind you, as against Israel and formerly Iraq.
Different Government, and was that “terrorism”? But the question was not “has Iran ever sponsored terrorism?” - the OP seemed to what to know if they were a “clear & present danger”.
Of course, damn near every powerful nation on earth is (continually) involved in sponsoring acts of terrorism; they just call it something different when their own interests are involved.
My recall of the embassy hostages was that it was a spontaneous capture by a bunch of radical students that had nothing initially to do with the Iranian government. Once it happened the Iranian government felt it was its best interest to let it go on, at least until they got some useful mileage out of it. Of course what was odd about that episode was that not long after that the US start selling arms to these same terrorist Iranians, and used the proceeds to fund another bunch or terrorists, the Contras, who were fighting another bunch of alleged terrorists the Sandinistas were were being supported by the terrorists supporting government in Cuba, who themselves had suffered terrorist attacks funded by the US…
This is more or less true. As it happens, life expectancy in Iran is pretty low.
From the CIA World factbook.
Perhaps theocracy hasn’t been good to their economy.
Also try here:
http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=IR&out=s&ymax=250
If the link doesn’t work then cut and paste this into your browser and bring up the Iran listing:
The OP asks if there us “ACTUAL Proof”.
The answer is NO!
In any case, the US is well known to act and bring disaster without ACTUAL proof. The question is redundant.
The hostage crisis wasn’t a very nice thing to do, but since when is one gov’t holding the citizens of another gov’t a “terrorist attack”?
Would you accept the findings of the 9/11 Commission as “proof”?
If so, they say:
**
While it found no operational ties between al Qaeda and Iraq, the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has concluded that Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network had long-running contacts with Iraq’s neighbor and historic foe, Iran.
Al Qaeda, the commission determined, may even have played a “yet unknown role” in aiding Hezbollah militants in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, an attack the United States has long blamed solely on Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors. **
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6581-2004Jun25?language=printer
Bush’s friend Tom Keane said: “there were a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq”
Who can make this wording even more vague?
After Iraq, why bother to even ask the question? Proof, or the absence of proof, is irrelevant.
:rolleyes: :dubious: 
Snort, chortle, guffah. “spontaneous”. It is to laff.
Actually far as anyone has been able to determine, that was in fact the case. No government authorities appear to have authorized it, though the student leaders almost certainly received some tacit or even active encouragement from some clerics.
As it happens, while it may have caught Khomeini momentarily by surprise, it was a godsend to him and disaster for the Iranian government, which at that point was run by Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, a moderate secularist ( something of a spiritual successor to Mossadegh and leader of the moderate left in Iran - he had been appointed by Khomeini, who had apparently almost immediately regretted that bit of political compromise ). Khomeini was able to manipulate the crisis to his advantage, forcing his government to collapse in just a few days and ultimately he kept squeezing until the leftists/technocrats/secularists were almost completely gone. For Khomeini the hostage crisis at least short term was more significant in terms of internal politics, than it was in terms of international politics.
- Tamerlane
Terrorist attack may not be the right phrase, but seizing the persons of diplomatically credentialed people is not generally considered cool. Frankly, despite Tamerlane’s excellent explanation, if I were the Iranian government, I would have arrested the students and freed the hostages instantly.
Will you take the Iranian Constitution as proof? Admittedly by itself it does not mean they have actually done anything but I’d say it is a good start to their mindset.
More stuff…