Go ahead and take a look at what Iran was like in 1978 before the current regime took power, and then tell me what year Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, or Syria were similarly developed and unified as coherent nations.
I didn’t know that was the reason the name was changed. But isn’t the language spoken in Iran called Farsi? Did that spread from the same region?
That’s the thing people overlook when they propose a modern day Marshall Plan. That money would just be used to buy cheaper stuff from China and elsewhere.
The huge amount of artillery they have pointed at Seoul, which would likely level the whole city within a few days (or hours from some of the speculation that I’ve read).
That’s a factor, but it’s one that could be managed. Evacuating Seoul and eating some bombardment would probably be worth it for South Korea, if it meant the elimination of the Kim regime.
The real reason is China.
It was a rhetorical question.
I don’t understand what you are going at. Or what portion of my posts you disagree with. Are you equating Iranian society/economy at some point with Germany’s/Japan’s at any specific time?
I agree that there has been a more continuous “tribal” occupation of what is modern day Iran than other ME countries, including Israel. Or the US. What is your point?
Yes, Iran was absolutely a developed nation comparable (not equated to, but definitely in the same ballpark as) Germany or Japan. Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, and so on simply never had been.
Iran was a developed and modern nation. What do you mean by “tribal” occupation?
At what point in time? Just trying to understand what you are suggesting, so I can attempt to compare that with pre-WWII Germany/Japan.
The majority of ME nations have majority populations that share a theology and/or identify strongly with a certain ethnicity/culture - I use the word tribe - beyond any lines drawn on a map.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of theocracy or tribal identity - especially as the basis for a system of national government.
I’ve answered this a few times now. Iran was a modern and developed nation as of 1979. The revolution at first was a wide spread rejection of the absolutist Shah, which included most of society; but in the end, the religious fundamentalists seized the rein and became bigger tyrants than the Shah ever was.
After the revolution, Iran became more and more of a pariah state.
Some of the minority groups of Iran are like that, such as the Kurds, the Balochis, and the Iranian Azerbijanis - but I have never heard anyone describe Persian/Fars society in that way.
And not all of the aforementioned minorities are still tribal; at least some of them just identify as Iranian. And there are Iranic minority groups other then Fars, and they’re not really tribal either.
The people I mentioned above as being at risk of separatism if Iran’s regime fell - the Balochis, or the Kurds, etc - are also the ones whose societies are most organized along these lines. But the majority of the Iranian population is not among these groups, nor does it live in those areas.
Thanks. So what does any of this have to do with my comments on nation building/rebuilding?
Farsi or Persian is the language of Iran but it is not the first language of all Iranians; the regime makes Farsi the official language and Arabic the official religious language, but only about half of Iranians speak Farsi as a first language.
Farsi is the language of the Persian people, but not all Iranians are Persians, hence the name change.
You said:
Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan had never been modern nations existing within their defined borders with all the infrastructure, both physical and sociocultural, that this implies.
Iran did have all this, and the Ayatollah regime hasn’t even completely destroyed it, just thoroughly thrashed it.
When Saddam, or Gaddafi, or Assad fell - there was no real national identity for people to fall back on, which is why nation building was necessary to begin win.
Iran is already a real country with real institutions.
Fine. I’ll give you that in 79 Iran was industrially more advanced than the other ME nations I mentioned. I’m not sure whether Germany’s or Japan’s governments were perceived by their citizens as being as corrupt, repressive, and reliant on other nations as pre-revolution Iran.
I’ve long believed that Iran was the most “western” ME nation - other than Israel - and that we could accomplish much more through engagement than ostracism. I’m not sure what conditions could exist now or in the future which would give us any opportunity to build/rebuild Iran.
US policy WRT Iran IMO reflects about the worst ongoing example of foreign relations in the past century.
Like I said, I’m not terribly interested in either Iran or Israel - or any other ME country. Our fuckhead in chief will either get us into this fight or he won’t - and whatever I think will have no influence over that. Carry on however you wish. I do not intend to continue this specific discussion.
I have heard speculation via a Youtube channel that said Trump is waiting until the weekend to attack Iran because he doesn’t want to tank the markets. There was also speculation saying Trump is considering using a tactical nuclear weapon on Fordow. I couldn’t find the sources this Youtuber was referring to so take it with a grain of salt:
Persia/Iran was not one of those. Persia had functioned as a multi-ethnic unified state before any other. Like, when Rome was still one Latin tribal town feuding with its tribal neighbours, kind of before.
Isn’t Iraq the successor state to Babylon, though? That goes back just as far as Persia.
Not as a multicultural empire.
Not in the same way that Iran is the successor state to the Persia, no.
Babylon fell in 539 BC to the Achemanid Persians, and it would go on to be ruled by first Persians and then Arabs from outside the region. The Abbasid Caliphatehad its core in Iraq, but again, that was inherently a pan-Arab polity, not an Iraqi one.
After some the Caliphates came the Mongols, then the Turks - under both, Iraq was a distant backwater province. And that takes us all the way to World War I and then the British.
Persia came under periods of foreign rule, like the Ilkhanate; but there’s almost always been a Persia of some kind, somewhere on the map.
And even the Ilkhanate was “adopted” by Iranians - the Safavids that followed treat them almost like a conqueror dynasty in China.
Iran has been poking the bear (i.e. the Western world) for decades through terrorism and other shady ways. It’s not like they’re victims here by a long chalk.