[curiousgal]

I wasn't reffering to the assassination as much as the constant escalation and the targeting of cultural sites.

Whatever mess is happening in the Middle East, it's hard to deny the U.S.' role in creating it so it's not really as simple as "We're good, they're bad". In fact one could argue that it's the opposite of that.

[vorpalhex]

Anytime we're discussing geopolitical issues, "Good" and "bad" are right out the window. As the old saying goes, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

Iran views us as a foreign power meddling in their backyard and neighborhood, and would like us to stop so they can continue their plan of instituting their customs and government structure on their neighbors through unconventional means (what we call terrorism).

We view Iran as a constant threat whose goal is to wage proxy wars on our allies, control their immediate neighbors and generally attack Democracy and replace it with religious rule which isn't super pro-human rights.

That doesn't mean every conflict the US has waged is "good". Yes, the 1953 coup was generally best described as naked self interest amongst the UK and the US. Likewise, the US targeting cultural sites would be abhorrent behavior. However given the choice between the US sometimes doing stupid things and Iran being unchecked, I'll take the occasional stupidity.

[mirimir]

> Iran views us as a foreign power meddling in their backyard and neighborhood, and would like us to stop so they can continue their plan of instituting their customs and government structure on their neighbors through unconventional means (what we call terrorism).

Which neighbors?

[vorpalhex]

Iraq, UAE and Saudi Arabia are the ones I'm aware of, with the situation between Iran and Iraq being complicated but not directly hostile.

[mirimir]

It's all complicated.

Iran is the remnant of the Persian Empire, and Turkey is the remnant of its ancient rival, the Ottoman Empire. Much of the northern Middle East (along with a decent chunk of Europe) was part of the Ottoman Empire until ~1900. And countries there were largely fictions of European conquest and ~colonization.

As I understand it, the Persian vs Ottoman conflict survives more or less as Shia vs Sunni. But all of them hate intervention by outsiders.

There's aren't that many Shia in UAE and Saudi Arabia, and I doubt that Iran plans their conquest. However, Iran does work with groups throughout the Middle East who are fighting against outside intervention. Even Sunni groups. But not, I gather, ISIS.

Anyway, this seems a decent overview:

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/472657-beyond-the-...

Israel

US-USSR

[mirimir]

Oops, I left some artifacts there.