[voz_]

Iranian culture is beautiful. Food, architecture, music, literature. All corrupted by the ayatollah and fanatic religious powers that dominate the country. It is unfair to blame the west for its misconceptions when the outward presentation of that country is currently so anti-western, corrupt, and oppressive.

[soperj]

They were replacing a West installed dictator... Don't know if it's entirely the Ayatollah's fault here.

[voz_]

It's been 44 years, I think we need to stop giving countries a pass like this, at a certain point, their destiny is their own.

[istajeer242]

You do realize that western policies to this day have emboldened the mullahs in power? These sanctions just increase their control, and US govt obviously knows it. So much border trade occurs in spite of the actions, and mullahs garner more control. Nuclear deal was another case.

[forgetfulness]

The Iranian regime is absolutely brutal at repressing revolt, the revolts are also violent but of course nothing can match a state apparatus that has to shut the country to the outside world to hide the massacre; the country has been in a state of civil unrest for the better part of the past 6 years and I count the Wikipedia estimates at some 4000 dead from the response of state actors.

[mkoubaa]

Yeah, why haven't they overthrown a brutally repressive regime? Haven't they heard of Ghandi?

Please - don't do this. You don't know how hard it is for revolutions to succeed

[user982]

For all of those 44 years, the US has been continuously sanctioning, attacking, isolating, and threatening Iran.

[voz_]

Maybe if they didn't sponsor terrorism around the world, while oppressing their own people, they wouldn't get sanctioned? The find out part of fuck around doesn't mean they don't control their own destiny. Plenty of normal countries to look at for example.

[erenyeager]

The Us is a terrorist supporting inhumane regime that puts a pretense of being moral on the world stage. In reality it’s a very rotten country internally and as an American I really hope we can change that but all evidence seems opposite.

[andrepd]

That's a weak argument, as we (the West) sponsor many terrorist or oppressive regimes as long as it is in our economic or political interest. The US sponsored brutal and even genocidal regimes from Guatemala to Timor.

Talking about morality and "fighting terrorism and oppression" is laughable.

[andrepd]

Counties live in the shadow of things that happened thousands of years ago... 44 years is barely a generation.

[eternalban]

There was no installation. Please stop repeating IRI's propaganda line. Iranian society was divided between nationalists, fundamentalists, and communists.

The "Ayatollah's" in fact started the mess by assassinating the previous prime minister (who is never discussed) who was also "democratically elected". This was not the first Islamist terror in Iran. Again this is before the counter-coup of '53. (Yes, the first coup detat was by the famous "democratically elected PM", Mr. Mossadeqh.)

Iran had a constitution that precisely defined the roles of the Majlis (parliament) and the monarch. This monarch was sworn in as king in the Majlis way before '53. Kindly explain how he was "installed" in '53 by the CIA.

The "Islamic Republic" is a blight in the history of Iran and Islam. Their little project of creating the Islamist Vatican is an abomination in Islam. Their ridiculous "Supreme Leader" is another abomination, both for Iran and again for Islam. Islam is the religion of deliberation of assemblies and no man is "supreme" amongst the Muslims.

[propagandist]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état

Let's call it instigation.

[hobo_in_library]

The CIA literally admitted to master-minding and funding the coup

Weird that anyone is still in denial after that

[eternalban]

The CIA is an intelligence agency and has no obligation to tell the truth.

[dragonwriter]

> This monarch was sworn in as king in the Majlis way before ’53. Kindly explain how he was “installed” in ’53 by the CIA.

Basically, the Shah assumed direct rule in an autocoup (after a first failed autcoup) in an effort he was threatened with being deposted by the CIA into participating in, with US- and UK- and their Iranian pawns both orchestrating pro-Mossadegh anti-Shah demonstrations and violence, then pro-Communist anti-Shah anti-Mossadegh demonstrations and violence, and, ultimately, the pro-Shah military moves directed against the waves of violence and lawlessness that they themselves had sponsored.

[eternalban]

The extent of Shah's concessions to US security concerns was allowing CIA to create monitoring stations north of Iran: listening posts. A section of the secret service in Iran (SAVAK) was specifically tasked with keeping tabs on Western intelligence in Iran. The second one, which was withdrawn after public pushback lead by Khomeini, was exempting American servicemen and workers (mostly aerospace in Isfahan) from legal jeopardy for any offences in Iran. That was rather toady.

Former enemies:

https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/q&a/ref/2.html

"Cousins":

https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/176895/SN06808.pdf

(it's a question of power asymmetries. Really did the poor Shah have any choice? Related thoughts: Is the Japanese PM "Installed" by US? Is the UK PM a "puppet" of US?)

And to be quite frank, as an Iranian born, the assertion that some American (Kermit Roosevelt) gets off the plane with a briefcase full of dollars and overnight "installs" the constitutional king of Iran is bascially a hidden insult to Iranians. What sort of a entirely pushover nation are they, these Iranians? It's a bad propaganda joke.

Secondly, the fact remains that the roughly 14 years (60s-early70s) that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, yes as an autocract oversteppingn the bounds of the constitution, ran the place, Iran experienced its singularly most spectacular years in the 20th century. And the social progress, specially women's rights, are all due to the efforts of that man and his "regime".

US has nothing to apologize to Iran about viz a vis the Shah other than backstabbing a loyal ally in a time of crisis, and actively helping to usher in an entirely alien system, the "Islamic Republic of Iran"*, to power.

US chose Islamic Fundamentalism as a stretegic tool to further its geopolitical goals, and unleashed the hords on the world. US does need to come clean about that.

* (3 lies in one name, a world record!): It is not a republic. It is not Islam. And it certainly is not Iranian.

[erenyeager]

You can’t ethically sweep the atrocities of the Shah under the rug like kashf-e-hijab, and excuse him for merely overstepping a constitution. He attacked the fabric of Iranian society and humiliated the nation for the sake of pleasing Western masters. There’s very clear reason Iran ended up the way it did, and people who have the fantasy of returning to the shah era for “women’s rights” are really not thinking logically. Actually if you think the shah forcing women to uncover and make Iranian society naked was “women’s rights”, you are severely misguided.

[eternalban]

Your regime has raped and keeps locked up the "fabric of Iranian society". Shah was no saint but he did not evoke perception of -evil-, which your regime fully evokes.

A taste of your evil minds is the ludicrous notion that a woman choosing to not wear a piece cloth clutched between her teeth like a bit make Iranian society "naked".

And you also you have your history wrong. It was Reza Shah* that "forced" the removal of chadors. The Shah in question here made it a personal choice. The rights mentioned were the right to work, and rights relating to marriage and children.

* some background on the history here. Reza Shah famously walked into a mosque and whipped the men [read mullahs] who had insulted his wife who had visited earlier. This 'right to insult and harrass women in public' is a "right" these men take quite seriously. They never forgave him for this offence and subsequently when they seized power, they chose a "civilized and godly" expression of their displeasure by dessecrating the remains of a dead man. And then they built a toilet over it. This is the retarded gang that currently occupies Iran. As I said, a historic blight on our nation.