[cogman10]

To add, the primary reason the US supported Iraq was because it didn't want Iran to send oil to the USSR.

This was because the US didn't want a communist nation to have a good economy.

That's the story of a bunch of the CIAs operations.

[kakacik]

Iran itself in its current form is a continuous line of failures of CIA and MI6 that led to their revolution against highly unpopular shah that was undemocratically installed only by those powers.

Why do you think back then the us embassy situation evolved as it did. 'Embassy' my ass, full of cia folks regardless what shallow hollywood flicks try to propagate, meddling with internal affairs for profit and power of british and americans, while impoverished common locals suffered greatly.

As usual with cia it backfired tremendously, made huge mess for decades in entire region, killed gazillion of innocents but since there aint no us citizens its just some annoying background noise of some brown 'people', right.

Anybody with above-maga intelligence can piece together those few wikipedia articles, but egos got hurt so its highly emotional topic for americans. If at least you guys learned from your collosal mistakes...

[dTal]

I keep seeing comments that refer to Iranians as "brown people" - usually to emphasize their perceived "otherness" by the ignorant, as in this case. But Iranians aren't brown, or Arab apart from a small minority, and relatively speaking their culture isn't even that "other" - it would probably feel more familiar to the average American than some European countries even.

Do Americans really hear "Iran" and think of durka-durka from Team America?

[cogman10]

Iranians tend to have a little more pigment in their skin and it's not a minority.

I get why you'd say this, Iranians don't have particularly dark skin and some are as white as my English/swedish ancestors.

> Do Americans really hear "Iran" and think of durka-durka from Team America?

Some do. But usually the "killing brown people" is a shorthand for the fact that US policy has mostly focused on immiserating non-western-European nations for the benefit of of the US.

It implies racism at the core of US policy because only Western European nations are considered civilized and deserving of fair international treatment.

[cherrycherry98]

Western European nations have gotten a pass in recent history because they've been deferential to the US, are liberal democracies (ideologically aligned), and are not especially rich in strategic assets like oil. The same could be said of South Korea and Japan, highly civilized and in ideological alignment with the US.

In its history the US has engaged in military action against western and white majority nations: Great Britain (twice), the Confederate States, Spain, Germany (twice), Italy, and Yugoslavia. Not mention the perpetual rivalry against Russia/Soviets since the end of WW2 which has meant doing things like backing the "brown" mujahedeen against the predominantly "white" Soviets. Today it backs Ukraine against Russia, arguably making that war of "white" nations more deadly than it otherwise would be.

The US may have never fought against lilly white Scandinavian countries but neither has it done so against "brown" India or sub Saharan Africa.

[fingerlocks]

Correct, “Iran” literally translates to “Ayran”.

But America is a big place. Americans living in cities probably know a first or second gen Persian, there’s lots of them everywhere. They even have a reality TV show.

Outside the urban archipelago the average person couldn’t tell you the difference from India, Turkey. and everything in between.

[dTal]

*Aryan - Ayran is Turkish buttermilk :)

[type0]

> Do Americans really hear "Iran" and think

and think: oriental culture, as do other westerners. Some think "Not Without My Daughter"

[cogman10]

> but egos got hurt so its highly emotional topic for americans.

We've simply had decades of propaganda teaching us that the US is the most moral nation that has only fought moral wars for moral reasons.

A lot of the history books are about American exceptionalism and triumph. Even when they cover topics like slavery and civil rights, they paint it as being temporary embarrassments that we got over and now everything is OK.

MAGA is just a bunch of people who swallowed that propaganda whole and never questioned it in the slightest. We can see that in the fact that they get really upset about history lessons that are even slightly critical or analytical of America's past.