Stop calling me Shirley.
The sanctions started after Iraq invaded Iran. The first one mentioned is 1984 but back then well before Reagan took office there was bipartisan agreement to marginalise and isolate Iran through the ending of existing business deals, preventing them getting civilian airliner spare parts and so on and every effort was made at the UN and through diplomatic pressure to get other countries to do the same thing.
Iran funded and helped Hezbollah because they were a group who could cause problems for Iran’s enemies. Iran can’t fight a conventional war against America so they use unconventional means to cause their enemies problems. How much control they actually have over Hezbollah, peace be upon them, is debatable but Iran funding groups like Hezbollah and Hamas is part of their defence strategy.
The Iran-Iraq war was originally a pan-Arab effort. Saudi Arabia supplied a lot of money and logistical support to Iraq. King Hussein of Jordan actually fired the first shot of the war from a tank to give him a nice photo opportunity showing him as a man of action after he was under fire at home for concessions he’d made to Israel.
It’s Alawite not Aliwite.
Saddam blamed an assasination attempt on Aziz on the Iranians and it probably was one of the Iraqi terrorist groups they funded (and who now run Iraq) but Saddam and the other Arab countries who supported the war would never have gone ahead without an American OK. America enthusiastically funded and supported Saddam, sending him guns and gas and blocking any efforts at the UN to sanction Iraq for what they were doing.
The Middle East, ever since British geologists discovered oil in Iran in 1907 and ever since the use of oil-powered ships and military equipment in WW1 showed how crucial oil was to the winning of modern wars, has been what British Minister of War* Winston Churchill described as “the greatest strategic prize in history.” Since then the Brits and latterly the Americans have invaded countries, created new ones on the map, installed Presidents and monarchs, removed them, and generally imposed their will on the entire region, or at least the bit that contains all the oil. And of course pumped all the oil out for decades up until the mid-70s while paying their regional stooges a share far less than you’d pay as tip money in a restaurant. It’s fair to say that the actions of countries in the region, and in particular the actions of Iran from 1953 to the current day, are pretty much reaction to American actions.
*That’s back in the days before military powers got all Orwellian and started describing their war departments/ministries as “defenc/se.”
Regarding the MB. It seems like analysis of this organization is all over the map. Some wonks are saying they are junior Jihadists, while others are painting them as Islamic Quakers. The only item that seems certain is that there are a lot of questions about them.
Suppose the MB calls for a jihad against Israel? Israel would have much to fear from an aggressive Egypt.
The middle eastern “deck of cards” is being shuffled, once again!
I belive the ONLY prudent thing for the USA to do is STAY OUT!
Anything we could do will either lose us friends or make us more enemies.:eek:
Ok, you’re now trying to change the narrative. In your first post you claimed that the US didn’t impose sanctions on Iran until 1984, now you appear to want to backtrack and claim they were started earlier by reclassifying the “ending of existing business deals” as sanctions. That doesn’t work. Beyond that, after Iran invaded a US Embassy and took several hundred hostages is it shocking that the US would want to end business deals.
Uh, no. Both are perfectly acceptable.
You might as well say “it’s Quran not Koran” or “it’s Mohammed not Muhammad”.
Arabic doesn’t use the Roman alphabet so when people write out Arabic words using the Roman alphabet they’re merely transliterating them as well as they can.
That’s why depending on who you read, the leader of Libya is named Khaddafi, Ghaddafi, Quaddafi, Kaddafi, or Qaddafi and the title of Kuwait’s ruler is Emir or Amir.
That said, I usually type out “Alawite”. “Aliwite” was merely a typo on my part, but perfectly acceptable.
Well, you can repeat this as much as you want, but it doesn’t make it so.
I would simply say you are fundamentally misunderstanding much of Khomeini’s beliefs. I would recommend anyone interested to read up on his writings and speeches throughout the 70s where he dreamed of spreading an Islamic revolution throughout the Middle East and destabilizing all of the non-Islamic governments in the region.
In fact, he was supporting Shia groups in Lebanon before the US went in and even before the Israelis invaded.
I know a lot of people like to imagine that everything Iranians do is because of the US, but we’re not that obsessed with the US.
I’m not sure how “enthusiastic” American support for Saddam was. During the War Saddam got far more aid from the Soviet Union which is why almost all the weapons they used in the War and later on during their invasion of Kuwait were Soviet made.
Beyond that, Saddam would have invaded even without the US saying they wouldn’t support him so long as they didn’t try and actively prevent it.
As for the US giving support to Saddam, considering that Iran had declared itself to be the US enemy and had just taken hundreds of American Embassy personnel hostage I’m not sure why it’s at all surprising that the US would support someone else attacking them. The enemy of my enemy and all that.
I also notice you’ve dropped the accusation that the US deliberately shot down a civilian Iranian airliner.
Perhaps that is because 90% of the people opining had never heard of the MB until last week, and their current knowledge consists of “Well, I’m gonna guess that they are Muslim” and “Wow, that really sounds like a supervillain group.” Everyone is so eager to have an opinion that nobody is going to admit “Actually, I don’t know much about them.”
Ibn: The argument’s nature is clear, since Dick is taking the time to get in a bit of taunting by wishing “peace” upon a group of racist thugs like Hezbollah. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, as the saying goes.
No I’m not, I actually put into the Wiki thing in […] brackets [a year after the revolution]. I’m not reclassifying anything.
I’ve never seen “Aliwite” before.
You can repeat your version as much as you want, the same thing applies.
No, of course not, the Iranian regime or people have almost no interest at all in America. They’ve completely disregarded the events of the past 60 years.
America supported Iraq against Iran and her really good regional allies, like Saudi and Jordan, also supported Iraq. They wouldn’t have done so if America didn’t want it to happen. Let’s disagree on just how enthusiastic the support was.
So what if Iran took hostages. My original point was that our support of Iraq against Iran five minutes after they’d overthrown a brutal dictator we’d imposed on them is hardly likely to undermine the regime or make the population more moderate/deradicalise them. And if they took a few hostages to try and get the Shah back and we refused to send him then so what, what’s a few hostages after what America did to Iran for decades? As an Iranian the fact that your country was brutalised by an imposed dictator for decades doesn’t bother you? None of America’s actions since 1979 bother you? That wouldn’t be true for the majority of Iranians, would it?
And there’s no way to prove the US did deliberately shoot an Iranian airliner down. Obviously no mainstream commentator is going to claim that they did. It’s just my personal belief. You can’t prove they didn’t.
The U.S. should probably truck in loads of chocolate and stuff, labels blazing wth U.S. flags, to keep the protestors energized and (hopefully) more favourable.
Hezbollah are cuddly freedom fighters who kicked the Zionist entitiy’s sorry arse out of Lebanon. Twice!
Except that they have the bridge logs and after action reports from the Vincennes, which goes into the details of the incident, how it transpired and the events leading up to it.
Other than that, no…there is no way to ‘prove’ that the US didn’t deliberately do it. No way to prove that it wasn’t an Iranian plot that took over control of a US missile cruiser and fired the missiles to make the US look bad. Or that it was actually space aliens that did it. Just like it’s impossible to ‘prove’ that the US wasn’t directly involved in 9/11, and that bringing down the twin towers wasn’t a government conspiracy.
However, the preponderance of evidence is that it was an accident caused by the heightened tensions and errors in judgment all around. And that doesn’t even get into the dispute about whether the IFF was received and believed, or some of the other more controversial issues involved in the incident.
-XT
I don’t see what the big deal is if Islamists get into government, they’re already in government in Iraq, and we supported them and in some instances we have treaties and agreements with them, like Maliki was part of Dawa, and Al Hakim was part of SCIRI and even Sunnis with their Islamic party of Iraq. Same for Afghanistan,
I could go on, in Pakistan it was the Muslim league etc etc.
I personally don’t see a problem with this, as long as they go along the lines of like European political parties i.e Christian democrats.
It’s not that a theocratic government in Egypt would be bad, per se, just that it might fundamentally (heh!) alter the relationship between the US and Egypt. A relationship that has been mutually beneficial for quite a long time now.
The worry, I believe, is simply the unknowns of how it might effect not only their relationship with us, but their relationship with their neighbors, especially Israel. There has been peace between Egypt and Israel for a long time, and it would not be a good thing if that changed in any way. Again, no reason why it should, just because Egypt gets a new government…but no one knows just what will emerge when the current regime finally goes tits up.
-XT
Eh, give it up XT, it’s China Town.
We’ve got a good Conspiracy Theory because Americs Is Bad. We’ve got a pack of racist, genocidal thugs given support (folks can guess at the reasons for that, naturally). And even though he’s been corrected on it before, Dick is still claiming that Hezbollah drove Israel out of Lebanon in their recent war (folks can guess at the reasons for that error, too).
This thread isn’t about any of those hijacks though, and it’s probably best to let Dick’s interesting views stand on their own.
I’m really looking forward to controlled fusion.
Dick Dastardly, the rules allow posters to take pro- or anti-Hezbollah or -anyone else positions, but I think you’re doing this just to annoy other posters. Knock it off.
You are right. My apologies for furthering the hijack.
-XT
It was most likely a clusterfuck, a combination of a system not yet perfected (working) and crew and command not really up to coping (giving a shit enough). Still, everyone got medals!
Like I said, if you think there is only one proper way to spell Alawite using the Roman alphabet you don’t understand how the transliteration of Arabic words works.
That said, the fact that I typed “Aliwite” rather that “Alawite” was a typo.
I never said that. I’m merely pointing out that I’ve read what Khomeini actually wrote and spoke whereas you’ve given no indication that you have.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that spreading the Islamic revolution throughout the Middle East was one of the founding principals of the Iranian regime.
I believe you’ve gotten the timeline confused. You seem to be implying that the taking of hostages occurred following the start of the Iran-Iraq War.
In fact, the Iran-Iraq War started nearly a year after the hostage crisis while Iran still had hundreds of American hostages.
So, once again, claiming that the US’ support for the Iran-Iraq War was anger over the overthrow of the Shah as opposed to the US supporting the attack on a country holding 52 Americans hostages is ridiculous.
Beyond that, I’m a bit shocked that you think invading an Embassy and taking “a few hostages”(52 is a few) is a good thing.
Actually yes, much of what’s happened does bother me. As for the Shah, yes I think he was horrible and my father hated him, but the Shah’s government wasn’t remotely as horrible as the Mullahs who followed him.
Also, the Shah was not an “imposed dictator” but a “twice imposed dictator”. The first time he was imposed was during WWII because his father wouldn’t play ball with the British and let them use his country to supply the Russians.
Whenever I bring this up to people furious over the overthrow of Mossadegh and then ask them how outraged they are by that coup they usually get looks on their faces similar to that of a bull being turned into a steer and they start sputtering about how the UK had to do “whatever was necessary” to fight against the Nazis.
What they fail to recognize is that the people who got rid of Mossadegh thought the same thing. They were convinced that Mossadegh would become an ally of the Soviet Union similar to Nasser(though Nasser publicly denied being one) and that this would give the Soviets a huge strategic advantage.
Now obviously, I opposed both coups, and I assume you opposed both coups as well, but I can certainly see why others don’t.
I could explain my own personal feelings regarding the Iranian government in greater detail but that would take far too long and this is an extremely complex subject.
You seem genuinely concerned about the issue for which I do salute you, but you also seem to want to see it as a simple black and white issue which it most certainly is not.
I find the idea that the Bush administration was behind 9/11 to be far more plausible.
Moreover, you’re right, I can’t prove that the US didn’t deliberately shoot down the airliner. I can’t prove a negative.
I also can’t prove that the Illuminati didn’t kill JFK or the Pope.
I’m not sure how many Sunni and Christian Lebanese view Hezbollah as freedom fighters.
I’m also not sure why you think of people who blow up Jewish community centers in Argentina are “freedom fighters”.
If the people who blow up Jewish community centers in Argentina are “freedom fighters” does that also mean that Jewish community centers in the US are acceptable targets as well?