[jmyeet]

Let's summarize the history here:

1. The British were stealing Iranian oil (ie the Anglo-Persian Company, which is now BPl;

2. Iran democratically elected Mossadegh who said Iranian resources would be for Iranians;

3. The British freak out. MI6 twice goes to the newly elected Eisenhower administration to get them to intervene. They are rebuffed the first time so the British come back with a fabricated story about how this is communism somehow and the Eisenhower administration takes the bait;

4. Eisenhowever overthrows the democratically elected government of Iran to install the Shah as an autocrat (he was previously a figurehead pretty much);

5. The Shah takes the oil and basically gives it to the Americans so the British didn't even get what they wanted;

6. The Shah was a brutal dictator that included Savak, a secret police that had a history of violence, represseion and disappearing people;

7. By the late 1970s it was becoming clear that the Shah's regime would fall. The Americans were worried that the Communists would win and Iran would fall into the Soviet sphere of influence so got their puuppet in the region, Saddam Hussein, to expel Khomenei from Iraq in the hopes that the Isalamic fundamentalists would win;

8. The fundamentalists did win. Iran was punished for expelling the American puppet with crippling economic sanctions. Additionally, Saddam Hussein was armed and prompted to go fight a war with Iran. The Iran-Iraq war lasted years, killed over a million people (iranians and Iraqis) and basically had no other change in borders or regimes in the region;

9. After 9/11. Iran gave material aid to the US including rounding up hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters;

10. Despite 15 of the 19 hijackers being Saudi, Osama bin Laden being Saudi and al-Qaeda getting material support from Saudi princes and Saudi madrasses (religious schools), Iran got lumped in with Iraq and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil". The reason for this were the hawks in the US administration who believed that George HW Bush messed up not overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 1991. They had prior to 9/11 urged the Clinton administration and Congress to invade Iran;

11. Iraq was invaded because the neocon hawks, particularly Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, won the policy debate. It is highly believed they thought they would be overthrowing Iran too;

12. North Korea managed to stave off attacks by developing a nuclear weapon. That was the true lesson of the Global War on Terror: only a nuclear weapon will guarantee your survival;

13. Despite that the second Ayatollah, Khamenei, issued a fatwa against developing a nuclear weapon, something which still stands to this day, in 2003;

14. Obama negotitated (with European allies) the JCPOA, a program to inspect Iranian nuclear sites, in exchange for sanctions relief. There is no proof the Iranians ever violated the agreement. They even kept abiding by it for up to a year after Trump tore it up to appease Israel;

15. Israel committed too many hostile acts to enumerate, including the bombing of an embassy in Damascus, targeted assassinations within Iran, the murder of Iranians overseas, etc, pretty much all of which Iran just took on the chin;

16. The US and Israel started an unprovoked war last year, which included killing the Iranian negotiators. This war went so badly that hostilities ended after 12 days. It was widely suspected at the time that supplies of anti-missile munitions were getting critically low. Iran basically acted in good faith here that the Americans would negotiate in good faith; and

17. The Iranians were wrong. America did not act in good faith and started another unprovoked war at Israel's urging that included, for some reason, blowing up a middle school with almost 200 10-12 year old girls in it and killing an 87 year old man who had refused to develop a nuclear weapon (ie Khamenei) who also refused to go into a bunker because his people didn't have the same protections. That strike also killed a whole bunch of his family and the new Ayatollah's family.

18. This brings us to today. From Iran's position, the US cannot be trusted and does not negotiate in good faith. The uS will not restrain Israel in any way, which is an issue given Israel's insatiable appetite for blowing up babies. So Iran has concluded that the only way to guarantee their sovereignty is to make the economic pain so dire that th eUS never thinks about doing this again.

This has been clear for months now and Trump is choosing Israel over the economic pain that has been inflicted and is still coming. Millions will likely starve in the coming year.

But sure, keep repeating your State Department talking points.

[binvader]

Very nice pro-Iranian walk down the memory lane while comfortbly forgetting how piece and people loving Ayatollah killed thousands of Iranians for what good reason?

[bigyabai]

It's not "pro-Iranian" to acknowledge democracy. The Shah is also responsible for the death, torture and disappearance of thousands of Iranian citizens, with the help of the CIA.

As a US citizen, that concerns me far more than Iran's self-determination. I don't want my tax dollars going towards Yet Another Torture Regime.

[CMay]

> 2. Iran democratically elected Mossadegh who said Iranian resources would be for Iranians;

He was not really democratically elected, and he was not serving democracy. He was converting it into a dictatorship.

> 4. Eisenhowever overthrows the democratically elected government of Iran to install the Shah as an autocrat (he was previously a figurehead pretty much);

Overthrows the dictator, to restore the authority of the shah, you mean.

> 7. By the late 1970s it was becoming clear that the Shah's regime would fall. The Americans were worried that the Communists would win and Iran would fall into the Soviet sphere of influence so got their puuppet in the region, Saddam Hussein, to expel Khomenei from Iraq in the hopes that the Isalamic fundamentalists would win;

That misunderstands the concern that the fundamentalists themselves were a threat to Iraq and Saddam hated communists too. He tortured and killed Iraqi communist party members, systematically.

> 10. Despite 15 of the 19 hijackers being Saudi, Osama bin Laden being Saudi and al-Qaeda getting material support from Saudi princes and Saudi madrasses (religious schools), Iran got lumped in with Iraq and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil". The reason for this were the hawks in the US administration who believed that George HW Bush messed up not overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 1991. They had prior to 9/11 urged the Clinton administration and Congress to invade Iran;

> 11. Iraq was invaded because the neocon hawks, particularly Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, won the policy debate. It is highly believed they thought they would be overthrowing Iran too;

Iraq had invaded its neighbor Kuwait, bombed the World Trade Center once before, tried to assassinate the president and more. Saudi Arabia was an ally and Saudi Arabian citizens were recruited partially because they have easier access to the US, but they were trained in Afghanistan. It might be fair that we wanted a better footprint in the region as a hedge against Iran. It was obviously complicated.

> 12. North Korea managed to stave off attacks by developing a nuclear weapon. That was the true lesson of the Global War on Terror: only a nuclear weapon will guarantee your survival;

Russia wanted a foothold in Korea to strengthen its aim of acquiring Japanese islands to use as warm water ports, since its northern shores regularly froze. That has been ongoing since the early 1800s. Japan even assassinated a leader of Korea who was warming up to Russia too much back then. Eventually during World War 1, Japan took Korea, but when World War 2 ended they lost it to the US and the Soviet Union.

Similar to west Germany and east Germany, you had communist North Korea, then South Korea, but not really administered by the Korean people until they formed their own governments.

North Korea then got support from Russia and China to invade South Korea. North Korea started the war. North Korea was also the major aggressor even before the war.

A lot of countries don't have nukes and aren't getting invaded by other countries. We didn't invade east Germany, we waited for the Soviet Union to collapse.

> 14. Obama negotitated (with European allies) the JCPOA, a program to inspect Iranian nuclear sites, in exchange for sanctions relief. There is no proof the Iranians ever violated the agreement. They even kept abiding by it for up to a year after Trump tore it up to appease Israel;

The JCPOA set out the terms for compliance. The IAEA says, as far as we know they're complying. This only means compliance with the JCPOA. The JCPOA was a bad deal, so the fact they were mostly observed to be complying with it does not matter much. You don't say JCPOA -> being complied with -> shut off brain, turn off lights, lets go home boys. It was transparency with limits, but there were many other intelligence signals and behaviors from Iran that demonstrated that Iran did not stop being a threat. It was simply growing as a threat with international political cover.

> 15. Israel committed too many hostile acts to enumerate, including the bombing of an embassy in Damascus, targeted assassinations within Iran, the murder of Iranians overseas, etc, pretty much all of which Iran just took on the chin;

Iran has essentially been at war with the US and Israel for many decades. You can't look at an action from Israel or the US in a vacuum, that's very weak logic. Most actions are reactions to things Iran has already done. Iran has been surrounding Israel with funded militants, plus expanding these groups around the region.

> 16. The US and Israel started an unprovoked war last year, which included killing the Iranian negotiators. This war went so badly that hostilities ended after 12 days. It was widely suspected at the time that supplies of anti-missile munitions were getting critically low. Iran basically acted in good faith here that the Americans would negotiate in good faith; and

Iran provoked it by funding Houthi attacks on shipping in 2023 after also funding Hamas to attack Israel shortly before. They were breaking international law by shipping with dark fleets, funding attacks in the region and continuing to develop their nuclear program which the JCPOA allowed them to get a running start on.

They attacked others, so they legitimized attacks against themselves. It wasn't unprovoked. That is a very unreasonable perspective.

> 17. The Iranians were wrong. America did not act in good faith and started another unprovoked war at Israel's urging that included, for some reason, blowing up a middle school with almost 200 10-12 year old girls in it and killing an 87 year old man who had refused to develop a nuclear weapon (ie Khamenei) who also refused to go into a bunker because his people didn't have the same protections. That strike also killed a whole bunch of his family and the new Ayatollah's family.

The school was part of a military compound that may have been repurposed. It wasn't intentional, but it is very common for terrorists to intentionally put innocent people around military targets. Hamas did this regularly in Gaza. International law says civilian targets like this are not valid military targets, unless they are being used by the military. Unfortunately, it was probably both a civilian and valid military target. We don't make it a habit of intentionally killing civilians.

Iran does not have freedom of speech the way the US does. As a result, when information circulates in Iran or comes out from Iran, it is often controlled by the state. They will spread their propaganda, but the information is useless. They will do everything in their power to direct your emotions against the US, rather than themselves for their own behavior that caused these attacks to come.

Unfortunately this nonsense also now fills the internet and people fall for it.

> 18. This brings us to today. From Iran's position, the US cannot be trusted and does not negotiate in good faith. The uS will not restrain Israel in any way, which is an issue given Israel's insatiable appetite for blowing up babies.

Iran was not negotiating in good faith and has not been following international law to start with which are agreements presumably they should be following if they are a good and nice country that just wants to live in peace, International laws greatly benefit peaceful countries. If Iran was peaceful like most other countries, they could be benefiting from those same laws. This isn't only observed by the US and Israel, but by other Middle Eastern countries and Europe too. So you can't really say this is some crazy US Israel thing and Iran is really just being good. Nobody believes that, yet this message spreads online.

> So Iran has concluded that the only way to guarantee their sovereignty is to make the economic pain so dire that th eUS never thinks about doing this again.

We didn't take sovereignty away from Japan, Korea, Iraq, Germany, or Venezuela and so on. Your argument is very weak. We don't want every country, we just want them to be good peaceful countries that let their people live in freedom and peace. That's why we have so many allies. Nobody wants to be like our enemies, because they build their societies on poor logic and nobody is allowed to fix it.