But you understand than people resent foreign propped dictators more than home grown ones? you seem to expect people in Iran to coldly analyze the pros and cons of different dictatorships, as if they weren’t as stupidly human as you and me.
At least with regards to the current Iran war, attacked countries can say that the current American government is an enemy, or less plausibly that individual Americans are at fault because they didn’t personally lead a successful revolution.
But I do not think that actions taken before the majority of people in a country were adults justifies wishing the downfall of a nation. There’s nothing that I could have even in theory done about it without a time machine.
Again, I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I was simply correcting the record about this statement:
The Shah was already in power. His Prime Minister Mossadegh suspended the constitution and tried to seize absolute power for himself in what is known as a coup. An Iranian general loyal to the Shah named Fazlollah Zahedi prevented this through a counter-coup. Zahedi had some American support, but it’s not like if America didn’t get involved the Shah and people loyal to him wouldn’t have tried to stop Mossadegh’s dictatorial takeover of Iran.
They don’t, but national cultures do not work in so coldly logical terms.
And if the nation continues to act in the same way that caused the original beef, people can be a bit justified in wishing for its downfall.
I see, we are getting bogged down on “supported a coup”.
Let me rephrase, “The U.S. support kept the Shah in power, the Shah acted brutally, therefore people in Iran felt justified in assigning at least part of the blame for it the U.S.” would that be acceptable?
had the full support of the United Kingdom because those petrodollars petropounds have flow in the proper direction.
And they don’t like Britain, either. It’s just that Britain hasn’t spent the ensuing decades threatening and attacking them. The US has.
Are we talking about what actually happened or how it’s perceived? I agree that this is a perception that exists which drives a lot of anti American hostility. I doubt it’s very accurate. I don’t think Mossadegh would have been able to stay in power for long whether or not America was helping the Shah; the military wasn’t on his side. And if he did take power, he would almost certainly have been worse than the Shah based on what he got up to in his limited time in power - assuming he didn’t just get immediately overthrown by someone like the Ayatollah anyways.
The majority of Iranians are good people. A lot of them have fled to other countries to get away from the Theocracy currently in charge. Nobody is calling for the “death of Iran”.
If Trump isn’t, he’s got a funny way of showing it.
Fact is, however you phrase it, the USA took a role in Iranian internal affairs in the mid-20th century, and ultimately this has not been to the benefit of Iranians or Americans.
Other countries did not so meddle, and failing to intervene has not been to their detriment, though I’m leaving Israel out here because their situation is unique.
The Trumpists have been. To quote Hegseth, "Our commanders factor all of this, but the only ones that need to be worried right now are the Iranians that think they’re gonna live.” Among other things.
Sure sure. Except for the current president and his administration. Other than that, nobody. Well, all of MAGA. But really nobody if you don’t count all of them.
What did I say that didn’t actually happen?
Let’s review:
"The U.S. support kept the Shah in power " do you deny this actually happened?
“The Shah acted brutally” do you deny this happened?
You can use all the counterfactuals you want but those are the historical facts.
Also, other counterfactuals exist, perhaps Mossadegh would stayed, perhaps he would’ve replaced by something better than the Shah (not a very high bar), the point is that what actually happened is that the U.S. supported a murderous dictatorship and thus Iranians were/are angry about it.
Barely Moderating:
Just a reminder - this thread is about Trump’s / MAGA’s/ Netanyahu’s underlying reasons for the recent campaign against Iran. I’m not saying that the historical meddling is off topic. I do suggest that you tie such discussion back to the specific motivations and causations for the most recent conflict. I know it’s complicated, and the interaction of past, present, and future are inherently related, thus the looser moderation on this and the future speculation thread. So consider this a nudge, nothing more. No warnings, no mod notes directed at any individual poster.
He’s referring to the people in power. Not the people persecuted by them who want to remove them from power.
And why should anyone buy that? Hegseth is bloodthirsty to the point of being a parody; he’s also right wing and both hates anyone not like him and supports persecution.
And Trump himself is a narcissistic psychopath who would cheerfully kill everyone in Iran if he could make half a buck on it. The idea that any of these people are motivated by any desire to save the poor Iranians from persecution is just absurd. They want to persecute Americans, they certainly aren’t going to oppose the persecution of foreigners.