I know Lydia was the original aggressor.
This is exactly what I said.
What?- the Persians had conquered everything from the Indus to the Nile to the east Aegean coast, and then it suddenly became just “punitive”? That is an unreasonable position to take.
What the hell are you talking about?
This time I did break down and consult Wiki and others.
I recalled that Alexander wanted to be a God-King, and assumed he got the idea from the Persians. I have found nothing to support that and I believe you are correct.
That’s kinda severe, but, we could at least nuke Jerusalem. (Give everybody there a hundred bucks or two to leave, for the inconvenience, you have to be fair.) With bombs so dirty that nobody can go near the site without a lead suit for the next 1000 years at least. Problem solved! 
(I’m tempted to say, nuke Mecca too – but, nobody is fighting over Mecca. Yet. If that ever happens, let the Ka’aba Stone be reduced to constituent atoms blowing over the desert.)
Click the links and you’ll know. But, you don’t have to click the links, you already know very well.
Knock it off.
This is bad sarcasm and is not appropriate to the discussion.
[ /Moderating ]
Since you have Wiki open anyway for your search on “diadochi” why don’t you skip on over to this:
Parthia was, you know, sort of east.
The above does not appear to be soberly written. Please try again.
And of course the Zoroastrian-Iranian constituted a different civilization from the Islamic-Arab. You probably didn’t know that until I told you. Even if they were identical different members of the same civilizations are permitted to fight each other. You probably didn’t know that either until I told you.
I clicked one of your links and it was off-topic and that was enough. What is it I know very well?
Try reading it again. Or at least point out the parts that you don’t understand. And I really, *really *hope it’s the bit about 1960 and 20 minutes.
No, I mean it. I dare you. You have me worked up now, and I’m feeling masochistic.
No, I get it: You’re redefining “clash of civilizations” as “any war or conflict between two or more entities, ever, irrespective of the particular historical circumstances or the number of people from each civilization involved in the conflict”. That way, we can call any war or conflict a “clash of civilizations”. Therefore, Muslims are nasty. No problem at all. It makes perfect sense, I’m on board.
That saying “Alas for the West its own internal strife was its undoing, and its hegemony is gone” is the exactly the same as mourning the declining hegemony of the white race, exactly as Grant and Stoddard and “this man Goddard” mourned it – nothing more and nothing less. As you know very well.
BTW, guys, correct me I’m wrong, but aren’t members of the “Muslims are scary” subset (or, wait, is it that whole set?) of the “Clash of Civilizations” fan club supposed to at least restrict themselves to recent history, as in post Cold War, or at the worst not venture before ca. 700 AD? I don’t know why we’re even dragging ancient history into this. I mean, if we go there, we might as well put on our party hats and bring up the Trojan War. This shit has been going on since the Bronze Age, I’m telling you! And it all started with a girl!
Yeah. 'Cause, you know, it doesn’t actually work, and it’s not a particularly fun game, as far as I can tell.
Masochistic? You aren’t having one of those fits where you repeatedly bite yourself or something like that, are you? If that is what is wrong maybe I should try to divert your attention: Do north and south make any difference?
The entire distinct Persian civilization was at stake, it lost, and it was transformed by a clash with a different civilization. This process was repeated over and over elsewhere for the next 50-75 years. That is plain history and it is not the same as for example the numerous civil wars that the Arabs took part in against each other, which were not intercivilizational.
I found Stoddard on Wiki, so now I know who he is. I do not know Grant, Goddard or what you are talking about at all. Go ahead and tell me what you are talking about, and don’t worry about me getting all worked up like that Martian guy, with his dare-yous. I take it, I dish it out, I keep at it as long as it interests me.
Well, I was getting close for a moment there.
The Sassanids happened to be next to a bunch of recently united Arabs with a fancy new religion, who figured it was a good idea to go on the war path, because, hey, opportunity. Said Sassanids got wiped out, mostly because their armies were pre-toasted after the lukewarm never-ending bitch-slapping contest with the Byzantines had recently gone very hot. As it turned out, the plan worked out pretty well for said Arabs.
Sound a lot less ominous that way, doesn’t it? No one was saying “we’re bringing down this civilization and replacing it with another civiliziation, because… neo-Hegelianism”. Not any more than anyone was saying that before the battle of Thermopylae. People are fighting for their immediate objectives, and the continued existence own their own backsides.
Heck, come to think of it, I actually doubt that anyone before a battle has ever said that. Except maybe, in the immortal words of John Green, the Mongols. And some recently converted neo-Hegelians. Who, BTW, I’m not sure if I want to trust with guns.
OK, attention diverted. Um, I dunno, Do they? Is this question like one of those imponderable lines that you’re supposed to keep meditating over, until someone points and laughs?
It’s not sarcasm. We spend deades fighting in there, loosing western lives.
Just finish it.
Remember this post, in 50 years when we’re nuking them anyway, you can remember that I was right.
Persia was, like most empires, militaristic and bent on conquest. But they weren’t notably more vicious than any other empire and SOME of the nations they conquered (like the Jews) regarded them as relatively benevolent rulers. Some empires wanted to exterminate the conquered, others to enslave to conquered, others to reshape the conquered in their own image. Persians just wanted land and tribute.
None of which has much to do with modern Islam.
“Have you read The Rise of the Colored Empires by this man Goddard? … Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be – will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
– Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (“Goddard” is clearly a portmanteau of “Grant” and “Stoddard”)
No, because one of its legs is both the same.
“People” includes the Iraqi government. For America to stay it would have to ignore the status of force agreement, basically declaring that Iraqi sovereignty and democracy were meaningless.