[yyyk]

Actually, Iran was happy to take American support during that war[1], and the Iraqi program was not supported by the US - the program was mainly supported by French and Germany, which Iran is weirdly not pissed at.

Almost like there's no tit-for-tat. Maybe the real reason for the enmity is the Iranian regime being theocratic revolutionaries and the US not allowing them to 'export their revolution' (that is, take over the ME) as much as they'd like.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair

[stretchcat]

> and the Iraqi program was not supported by the US

Yes it was. The CIA knowingly helped Iraq kill Iranians with nerve gas:

> Declassified CIA documents show that the United States was providing reconnaissance intelligence to Iraq around 1987–88 which was then used to launch chemical weapon attacks on Iranian troops and that the CIA fully knew that chemical weapons would be deployed and sarin and cyclosarin attacks followed.[255]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War

[mullingitover]

I agree realpolitik is certainly a thing, and as long as we can see that with clear eyes and not settle on one side or another being 'the good guys' or 'the bad guys' we're all much better off. The best outcome for everyone is for de-escalation and peacemaking efforts that reduce the suffering of the regular people in the region.

[yyyk]

Realpolitik is not an excuse to look away from the moral results of policy. So long as the Iranian regime keeps trying to expand its hold or to attack Israel the ME won't be stable or peaceful. We saw the results of that in Syria. Stability would require a change in Iranian policies, right now the regime is unwilling to do that.

[mullingitover]

> Realpolitik is not an excuse to look away from the moral results of policy

Realpolitik is pretty much the act of never caring about the moral results of policy, and every power in the middle east practices it. I'm not convinced that KSA would be doing anything morally superior to what Iran is doing if they were in Iran's shoes. Stability would be what changes Iranian policies, and there are a lot of parties dedicated to ensuring that stability never breaks out in the middle east.

[yyyk]

>Realpolitik is pretty much the act of never caring about the moral results of policy

Yea, and it's not a good idea in the long term.

>I'm not convinced that KSA would be doing anything morally superior to what Iran is doing if they were in Iran's shoes.

What matters is what countries do now and not what some countries might have done if history were entirely different.

>Stability would be what changes Iranian policies

Many years ago, Kissinger said the Iranian regime has to choose whether whether Iran is country or a cause. They chose to make Iran a cause. Stability is incompatible with the cause's ideology.

[mullingitover]

Realpolitik is arguably the only geopolitical philosophy countries have ever operated under in modern times. We throw revisionism into the history books to feel better about ourselves after the fact. You're here citing Kissinger as a venerable authority rather than an amoral war criminal, case in point.

KSA exports the same toxic religious fundamentalism, the same if not more radical than anything Iran espouses. The difference is they have the fig leaf of support from first world countries as they do it.

[yyyk]

>You're here citing Kissinger as a venerable authority rather than an amoral war criminal, case in point.

Citing Kissinger does not mean endorsing him.

>KSA exports the same toxic religious fundamentalism...

Iranian-supported fundamentalism controls 4 ME captials, KSA controls only 1 capital. Iran is a explicitly anti-American revisionist power with a serious nuclear program while KSA isn't.

Unsurprisingly, I focus on the bigger more toxic power (that wasn't always the case - two decades ago KSA was the bigger issue). Isn't that more like realpolitiks rather than talking about what would some fictional KSA have done?