Probably not outside of the Revolutionary War (it’s in our history and revered, dammit, why is revolution only good for us?), the war of 1812 and WWII.
You have a good point, though, and it does bear out Der Trihs’ line of thinking in that we have always been a conquestiong nation that has “conveniently forgotten” treaties, agreements and such. American Indians, Chinese, Irish, African Americans, other non-whites or conformists all bore the brunt of the rise of our nation.
So as you say, it’s no surprise that the Iranians act in turn nationalistic, or that they would view us with suspicion and fear, as we view them.
I suppose that since the fact that guerrilla warfare has proven to be a valid method against superior-sized and equipped militaries gets coupled with the modern era of biological/chemical/nuclear weapons that the stakes are so much higher now for so many more people and countries, hence the worry and desire for pre-emption. And in light of 9/11 and 7/7 and all.
I know it was easy to miss and all, but there was that little matter of the invasion of Kuwait, defeat of their army in the field, cease fire terms and all those UN resolution thingies, not to mention the whole no-fly-zone stuff. Other than all that, yeah…Iran is exactly like Iraq. Guess we just flipped a coin, ehe?
Guess I’m just in my silly phase.
We didn’t impose the Shah on Iran, we supported him during a fairly complex situation. Was it the right thing to do? It’s debatable. But it wasn’t an attack by any stretch of the imagination.
As I said, it’s not like he wouldn’t have launched his war anyway. And the bulk of the deaths on both sides came from the static nature that the war devolved into…almost like a WWI static battlefield that dragged on for years.
I expect them to join the international community of nations and not be an outlaw state. Their own actions predicate the response they get from the US…oh, and the rest of the international community as well. It’s not like the US is the one lone voice decrying Iran’s actions.
BTW, do you find it ironic that you are cool with them attacking us, but that you decry the converse, even by proxy? If you don’t, I’ll tell you Der…I do.
They are an ally. To a certain extent, as with NATO and many other countries (say, like South Korea where we actually have stationed troops for over 50 years), their problems are ours as well.
Nice post, XT. Thanks for managing to sum up pretty much how I feel on this matter in a way that didn’t require my worthy of contempt, clarity-lacking style.
History happened before Bush and his ‘neocon puppets got into power’? I fail to see whatever point you were trying to make with this. Could you elaborate?
In case you didn’t get my point, the reason we invaded Iraq is because of our history with Iraq. The war in Kuwait. The cease fire agreements. UN resolutions. No-fly-zones. Inspections. Saddam. All that jazz. We did not have a similar history with Iran. Invasion of Iran was never in the cards except for left wing CTers. Hell, invasion of Iraq was probably not in the cards, at least not during Bush II’s administration, but for the 9/11 attacks that gave him a window of opportunity to do so.
Yeah…I know already. You don’t agree. We would have invaded Iraq come hell or high water, regardless of Bush being a non-entity domestic policy president…correction, a WEAK non-entity domestic policy president.
Nope, they probably don’t at that. I imagine none of the millions of people oppressed, tortured, etc etc throughout the last century by the various world powers were jumping for joy either. At a guess, the folks killed by Iranian proxies probably aren’t to happy either.
No point in trying to reach you on this, but just for drill…if we haven’t killed any of them when they are acting badly on the world stage, why in the name of the gods would we kill them if they straightened up and started flying right?? Your assertion is ludicrous…but then, you probably knew that already.
I know…all the worlds evil can be laid directly at our feet. The US…mostest evilahist nation evah!
So can South Korea, NATO, Japan, etc etc. What’s your point? That because they can look out for themselves we should not honor our treaty obligations to them? Let em sink or swim on their own? Is this just for Israel or for those others too?
This is a monster of a handwave, here. So they are allowed to remember history and we aren’t?
:rolleyes:
That I can get behind to a degree. We funnel so many arms and money into Israel due to political/religious/shining democracy-on-the-hill reasons that nothing short of a serious threat to their existence should trigger a major response on our part.
Not that I’m anti-Israel. They have an equal amount of right to exist as any other nation on Earth, but they are certainly in a unique situation geographically and history-wise.
Not to mention that they should be badass enough to take care of Iran in the event of hostilities on their own, without our direct intervention. They have the tools, we sold them to them, and they’ve developed many tactical, intelligence and technological advancements to what we do militarily.
I hope Israel doesn’t panic and attack Iran, unless there is CLEAR evidence that Iran is in fact developing nuclear weapons and doesn’t bend under international pressure to abscond of them (how long does diplomacy take, anyway? What’s the going rate for countries to wait before they attack?).
Iran is clearly a threat to Israel. Iran clearly perceives Israel as a threat to them, but whether or not that perception is solely comprised of an Iranian perception that it would be war by proxy with the US is unknown. Maybe they just hate Israel that much and can’t bear it’s existence and control over holy Islamic sites, as well as the Palestinian angle.
Edit: Ah, noticed Xtisme beat me on the "our history with Iraq vis a vis Iran thingie.
Let’s hope that diplomacy wins the day on this one. I am sick of war.
The Project For A New American Century neocons tried to convince Bush Senior to go along with their plans; he wasn’t dumb enough to try to occupy Iraq. Bush Junior was.
No. We invaded because that was part of the PNAC agenda.
And, of course, you ignore the whole point that your attempts to wipe our hands free of responsibility for supporting Saddam don’t impress anyone but you and your fellow apologists.
Because we don’t care how they act. This is about American imperialism and our feud with Iran, not how Iran acts. We’ll attack when we can; we’d have invaded under Bush if we hadn’t gotten bogged down in Iraq. What they do doesn’t matter.
And we have killed quite a few of them.
I never said that, not that I expect you to stop distorting what I say.
We shouldn’t warp our foreign policy and kill thousands or millions to benefit one small, not very useful ally.
I have no idea what you are talking about. This has nothing to do with history; we attacked now because people who wanted to attack got into power. Sadism, ambition, greed and ideology motivated us, not history.
I said no such thing. I said that we didn’t attack because of any such history; anything Iraq did or didn’t do wouldn’t and didn’t affect our intention to attack.
To whichever no-nothing that claimed the US had nothing to do with the Shah, although it is such common knowledge I can’t understand how anyone so unbelievably (or more probably, willfully) ill-informed can have the gall to participate in this thread.
We turned a relatively powerless constitutional monarch in a democratic system into a monster and let him loose on his own people. Just like we did all over the world from Chile to Indonesia (where the CIA named name for the death squads).
So yes, the British and the USA, are entirely responsible for what happened in Iran. But those of paying cursory attention to the 20th century knew that. They are entirely responsible for Iranian fundamentalism.
And in other news, Franco still dead and the Nazi’s were responsible for the Holocaust.
Blowback is a bitch and any attempt to claim moral superiority for the West by any measure, particularly body counts, is preposterous.
The American economy is very weak; Europe, not so much. Our economies are closely tied but not in lockstep. Remember, the Great Depression hit America just as Europe was recovering from it.
Do you have a post number for someone supposedly saying this? Because I can’t find it. What I said (as I assume this screed was directed at me) was that we didn’t impose the Shah on Iran…and that it was a fairly complex situation (which frankly I didn’t want to go into in detail at 10pm at night…especially since it seemed a hijack to me). FTR, I’m quite informed about the history of Iran, the Shah, and both Europe’s (specifically the Brits) and the US role in said history. But thanks for the fine Wiki link…though personally I would have used the one on the history of Iran, the sections Pahlavi dynasty (1925-1979), World War II, and United States and the Shah. The next section, Prelude to the Islamic Revolution is also quite interesting, though not relevant to the question at hand.
Now, if you are talking about someone else who posted this, then provide the post number. Otherwise, please stop building strawmen, ehe?
Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq deposed the Shah and was later in tern deposed (in a coup) due to CIA (and British) activity. As I said, it was a complex situation…and messy. Here is Wiki’s take on it (since it seems more discussion is needed on this subject):
We (i.e. the US) didn’t ‘impose’ the Shah on Iran…it’s unclear at that time exactly who should have been in charge, with both sides (well, more than two actually) grabbing for power. If anyone ‘imposed’ the Shah (dynasty) on Iran it was the Europeans, specifically the British…though in fact the dynasty was founded in a coup from the older ruling family (Qajar). Again from Wiki:
Well…that’s good, ehe? He is just wishing that Israel was gone, or is confident that they will collapse on their own. Nothing wrong with either of those (ETA: From HIS perspective of course).
I am curious though…why be evasive about their nuclear program? There seems plenty of incentive for them to open up their programs to full international inspections to further allay everyone’s (unfounded) fears.
Also…why develop (proscribed) missile technology that happens to have the range to reach Israel? And why demonstrate this capability in such an open, though not to say threatening (it’s a wish after all) way? Essentially those missiles are worthless without some kind of area of effect payload (like, say a nuke, or maybe chemical or biological payload)…they are simply to inaccurate to hit anything smaller than a city. And range wise (2000km IIRC), they seem to be made with a very specific purpose in mind.
Sure, one could say that they are to protect themselves from Israel (wouldn’t be much good protecting themselves from the evil US)…but that seems like a catch 22 situation. Israel is only a threat to Iran because of Iran’s (misunderstood) actions…such as the evasiveness about their nuclear program, development of their missile technology (and that whole Hamas thing). Chicken and the egg…which came first, the threat or the ‘defense’?
Anyway, since I don’t personally speak Farsi (I assume it was in Farsi…I don’t even know that much), I’ll take Wiki’s word for the mis-translation. Thanks for the cite there…I had not heard that interpretation of his speech before and it does give an interesting light to things.
There wasn’t any strategy that could’ve kept Iraq from being laid waste. The only thing that would’ve stopped us is Iraq suddenly acquiring nukes, and he didn’t have the ability.