I remember hearing a report that Iran was making real progress towards safety and freedom before the war on terror led them to appoint strong men to keep them safe.
You may be referring to Khatami’s Reforms, nevertheless. Conservative factions in Iran, including the Revolutionary Guard and unelected institutions like the Guardian Council, resisted Khatami’s reforms. They shut down reformist newspapers, jailed activists, and blocked progressive legislation. The reformist movement was gradually smothered, and by 2005, the hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president, reversing many of Khatami’s policies.
The loopback to "its all the wests fault anyhow" is so tiresome from people like you.
"appoint" lmao
You think since the revolution in 1979 any election has been real? Yes in b4 the Shaha was bad too. etc. waah waah.
At some point, you grow up and pick a side. Ruissia, Iran, China and rouge states, vs The West, EU and USA.
Iran is the world’s top state sponsor of terror, per the US State Department. The IRGC and Quds Force fund, arm, and direct groups like Hezbollah ($700M/year), Hamas, Houthis, and Iraqi militias. They’ve been linked to assassinations (e.g., 2011 Saudi ambassador plot), bombings (Bulgaria 2012), and cyberattacks on US/EU infrastructure. Even during economic crises, Tehran spends ~$1B annually on proxies. Recent examples: UK arrested Iranians in 2025 for plotting attacks on Israeli sites (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2wqy5ejdjo); Houthis’ Red Sea strikes use Iranian drones/missiles. Sanctions and court rulings (Khobar Towers, 9/11 facilitation) confirm their role.
>The loopback to "its all the wests fault anyhow" is so tiresome from people like you
I most certainly said nothing of the sort. I watched a documentary that claimed that many years ago and I asked if it was true. Go and post your vile rubbish on Twitter
The assertions I’ve presented are substantiated by verifiable sources. It appears, however, that your intent is to obfuscate or sanitize the actions of an Islamist regime, rather than engage with the evidence at hand.
The assertion that I stated it was Americas fault is untrue. It appears nowhere in my comment. I asked if it was true because I don't know. Your answer would have been helpful without that Twitter style insertion of an intent that certainly wasn't there.
Do you have sources for everything you heard a decade ago? I was hoping someone could have pointed to a balanced analysis, rather than looking for malign intent in what I said
I'm going to add what I have found to answer my own question. I have found that this appears to be so divisive a subject that an internet discussion is impossible without immediate mud-slinging. The articles I have found are overtly biased in one direction or another. So I turned to wikipedia...
Read for yourself and decide 1) was Khatami a reformer, helping to make Iran a better place. I mean relatively better of course!
If you don't think he was, exit now. Now assuming you think he was, the question is did the war on terror hinder him. I'm not an academic but when the sources are obviously biased it can be instructive to see what one side is prepared to concede about the other.
Here is paper written for the US National Intelligence Committee that warns this may be an outcome
"Two tentative, and partly contradictory, projections suggest themselves: (a) the more
intense and widespread our counter-terror campaign within the Middle East, the more
ammunition will the conservatives have to stoke anti-US sentiment within Iran and siphon
support away from the reformist camp; "
And here is an article trying to refute that Khatami was hampered by the war on terror, by the Washington Institute for Near East policy which wikipedia says, "is a pro-Israel American think tank"
Which firmly establishes that American politicians and media people were pushing the line that the Axis of Evil speech had hampered Khatami in reforming Iran. Therefore I deduce that some people were indeed stating this as a truth at the time from within mainstream America, and it is not just an anti-american conspiracy. The article tries to refute it of course, but in doing so acknowledges that it is an opinion held at the time. You read, you decide.
The loopback to "its all the wests fault anyhow" is so tiresome from people like you.
"appoint" lmao
You think since the revolution in 1979 any election has been real? Yes in b4 the Shaha was bad too. etc. waah waah.
At some point, you grow up and pick a side. Ruissia, Iran, China and rouge states, vs The West, EU and USA.
Iran is the world’s top state sponsor of terror, per the US State Department. The IRGC and Quds Force fund, arm, and direct groups like Hezbollah ($700M/year), Hamas, Houthis, and Iraqi militias. They’ve been linked to assassinations (e.g., 2011 Saudi ambassador plot), bombings (Bulgaria 2012), and cyberattacks on US/EU infrastructure. Even during economic crises, Tehran spends ~$1B annually on proxies. Recent examples: UK arrested Iranians in 2025 for plotting attacks on Israeli sites (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2wqy5ejdjo); Houthis’ Red Sea strikes use Iranian drones/missiles. Sanctions and court rulings (Khobar Towers, 9/11 facilitation) confirm their role.