The 1979 Islamic Revolution was staged by Iranians, in response to the despotism of the Pahlavi dynasty, founded in 1925 by Iranians.
It is a disease of the Western mind - and particularly Western academia - to deny agency to others, especially people in the Middle East, as you're doing here with your painfully unsubtle attempt to link US support for the Pahlavis in 1956 to the 1979 Islamic Revolution 23 years later. Worth noting that the Pahlavi dynasty started out as autocratic as it ended, well before the US ever showed up.
This is a lazy reverse Orientalism, where people in the Middle East are othered and cast as a perennial victim incapable of taking any role in, or responsibility for, what happens in their own countries. It's disempowering racism in academic garb.
Iranians caused the Islamic Revolution and only the Iranians can undo it. I wish them the best of luck in doing so.
“Support”. Hah. The word you’re ham-fistedly avoiding there is “coup”. You got the year wrong as well. The US and UK self-admittedly engineered it to support their national interests.
If you believe not one but two superpowers can’t engineer a coup in a financially poor but resource rich nation then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Except we're not talking about the Pahlavi dynasty, we're talking about the Islamic Republic. You're trying to draw some direct causal link from the '56 coup to the '79 revolution, just because that's the conclusion your preconceptions demand, facts be damned.
Why stop there? France engineered and supported an anti-British coup in the underdeveloped but resource rich American colonies in the late 18th century, setting in motion the train of events that led to the Islamic Revolution!
And the Polish General Kosciusko fought valiantly for the Americans, on account of the partitions of Poland. Were it not for those partitions, he'd have been at home! So it is the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian Empires - the partitioning powers of 18th century Poland-Lithuania - to blame for the Islamic Revolution!
But why did Austria desire to get involved in the partitions of Poland, and what long game was it playing vis-a-vis the Shiite scholars of then-Persia...
Hold up, we need a corkboard and some pins. Where's Pepe Silvia in all of this? Who has the Jack Ruby?
You can draw the bowstring all the way to Mars if you want to, but the only people to blame for the monstrous regime of Iran are the people who put that regime in place, and that certainly wasn't the Americans. No amount of "well this encouraged that, which caused blowback to this, leading to that" Substack-level motivated reasoning is going to change that fact.
The gay kids being executed by Iran are not cursing the name of America, or Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, they're cursing the ghouls who are hanging them, who are their countrymen.
> but the only people to blame for the monstrous regime of Iran are the people who put that regime in place, and that certainly wasn't the Americans
Let’s put it this way: if we where to stack rank all the countries that where directly involved in the creation of the modern Iranian regime, Iran would be first and America would be second.
This isn’t some theory, it’s a pretty clear/succinct cause and effect.
It’s not clever, patriotic or even a good take to ignore that and hide behind “well it’s their fault for having a regime change orchestrated by us that installed an unpopular authoritarian monarch who curtained freedoms because he would oppose Russian interests and support western ones, ultimately leading to someone worse taking power after decades of human rights abuse supported by the west in return for continued alignment”.
Yes, ultimately the person who pulls the trigger is responsible, but the person who gave them the gun and told them where to shoot is also responsible.
That's quite a shift from your earlier post that US conduct "led to" the Islamic Republic, and a more measured and reasonable take. But in as far as the US had a secondary role in recent Iranian affairs, it was a very distant second to the Iranians themselves. It does the Iranians no favours to edit them out of their own history.
The thing is, it's very easy to get caught up in this kind of rhetoric and lose a lot of perspective. This is the kind of logical chain that leads people to end up deciding that Germany had "legitimate grievances" about the Treaty of Versailles and end up in some pretty dark places. Not saying that's you in the slightest, just noting the problems with that rhetorical style. It's fast, somewhat lazy, and greatly lacking in perspective.
If there's something I think we can agree on, the US role in '53 (corrected date) is nothing to be proud of, any more than *points generally towards the Strait of Hormuz* whatever the hell this is.
Iran has actually never directly killed any US citizens. This misconception arises because its allies in Lebanon have done so. But the US and Israel were occupying the bottom third of Lebanon so I would hardly call that an attack.
There was also the hostage crisis but that was done by student protestors rather than the Iranian government.
The 1953 coup was ugly realpolitik, but the Islamic Republic's hostility began in 1979 (hostage crisis, embassy takeover, fatwas against the West). Iran has been the initiator of most modern conflict.
It contributed, but downright accusing the US for 1979 ignores Iranian agency, the Shah's own policy failures, economic/social pressures, and the ideological revolutionaries.
I think you need to learn more about the history of U.S./Iran relations over the past 75 years. There was a pretty good episode of NPR Throughline a couple weeks back that gets into the CIA bullshit and then 1979 onwards. Iran has not been a good actor, but we aren’t exactly saints either. It’s an ugly situation all around.
Ok, the Shah didn’t just randomly happen. The U.S. and U.K. helped put him back in power, so American interference is part of the chain that led to 1979... apparently largely due to geopolitical and crude oil reasons.... huh. Enlightened.
The hostility began in 1953 - too many Iranians hated shah and seen monarchy as oppressors put in by CIA. Even anti islamist Iranians were writing about it. And yes, monarchy was a vialent dictatorship.
Like yes, goverment put in by america wont be hostile to america. But its opponents will blame america for that goverment, because well, they are to blamr. And also, once it fails, all the suppressed anger goes out. And some more, because now america is well positioned to be generic scapegoat even for stuff it had not done.
you seem to have all the data but failing to sort them out to see the direct causal link between the point of origin and the current situation.
also I would argue that we should not confuse Iran and the islamists ruling the country. as a reminder the Iranian people suffered thousands if not tens of thousands death recently during violent repression of social unrest. so it seems the Iranian people may disagree with the choices of the people in power. at least until the US joined the israel led war crimes against Iran.
It is pretty obvious that the current war was started by Israel and USA.
I somewhat understand Israel's agenda and objective, even if evil and selfish depending on the point of view (or selfish, for Netanyahu to avoid legal scrutiny while acting as prime minister).
I don't understand the USA attacking here at all. With rising prices I think Trump should pay compensation to the rest of the world for his decision here. This is now similar to the build-up to Vietnam though - I don't see Trump being able to withdraw, without looking incompetent, so he is now committed to the war, similar to why Putin can not stop his invasion of Ukraine. Two criminals, one thought.
Trump thinks he did a huge favour to the entire world. He even expressed disappointment no country accepted to give him a little hand when he asked for help.
It is not obvious at all unless you don't understand Iran's objectives and its attacks on Israel (a country over 1,000 miles away) for the past several decades.