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I’m always caught by surprise when I see intelligent, educated people ignore the nature and actions of Iran to justify their adversarial feelings towards the US

I’m always caught by surprise when I see intelligent, educated people ignore the nature and actions of Iran to justify their adversarial feelings towards the US administration. Iran is on an unprecedented aggressive and violent push towards dominating the Middle East. They are deployed in Syria, building forward bases to threaten Israel, destabilize Lebanon and pushing it closer to another war with Israel by funding and arming Hezbollah. They are sponsoring and arming Shiite militias in Iraq and provide them with ballistic missiles to threaten other Middle East countries. They are supporting and funding the Houthis in Yemen who are responsible for the civil war and attacks on Saudi Arabia and Gulf states. They are supporting, funding and arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, both of which are recognized terrorist groups intent on murdering Jews. They are responsible for historical attacks on US forces in Lebanon during the 80s which killed hundreds of Americans. They are later responsible for the attack on the Jewish community in Argentina in the early 90s. Lately multiple Iranian operative cells have been exposed in Europe, trying to engage in assassinations. They are bullying Gulf states. They are calling for the destruction of Israel every few weeks. Iran is developing a ballistic missile program which is intended to threaten Western Europe (they are up to 4000km in range now with their latest missiles). Finally, Iran hangs gays from cranes. Now, why would anyone in their right mind oppose sanctioning this country?

knowThySelfx 7y ago
One side of the story. But the thing is, intelligent people will want to know why?
- flyinglizard 7y ago
  Intelligent people already know why: Iran is interested to see Shiite Muslim groups proliferating, for religious as well as practical reasons. Iran is the leader of the Shiite world, in the same vein Saudi Arabia represents the Sunni world. This is why Iran supports Hezbollah (Shiite) over other groups in Lebanon, Houthis (who are not Shiite but oppose the Sunni majority) in Yemen, Shiite in Iraq, Bashar Al Assad (who is Alawite himself but closely aligned with the Shiite and opposing the Sunnis in Syria). The only place where Iran supports Sunnis is Gaza, and that's done to primarily weaken Israel which Iran perceives as its primary threat to regional hegemony.
dgellow 7y ago
> Now, why would anyone in their right mind oppose sanctioning this country? Just to answer your question, I don’t really have a position myself on the topic: Embargos target the general population, making things way more difficult for normal people who are just trying to live their lives. That can potentially create pressure for the people responsible for the evil actions and decisions you want to sanction, but as a side effect a lot more people are negatively impacted. That seems quite immoral to me.
- flyinglizard 7y ago
  The sanctions have real, tangible practical effects. It's not just about making them suffer. For example, Hezbollah who are almost exclusively funded by Iran, had their budget cut by half [0]. The military operations Iran undertakes in Syria which are intended to strategically threaten Israel have taken a cut. It's hard to justify supporting proxy wars when the population at home is hungry. [0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/as-iran-us-tensions-rise-with-drones-downed-hezbollah-readies-for-war-with-israel https://www.thedailybeast.com/as-iran-us-tensions-rise-with-...
  - kweks 7y ago
    Hezbollah was created to expel the Israeli invasion in south Lebanon. [1] One thing is for sure: Middle East politics and history has no single (or correct) perspective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Lebanese_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Lebanese_confl...
    - flyinglizard 7y ago
      Now that Hezbollah covertly built five tunnels extending far into Israeli territory to attack Israeli civilians, you need to ask “who’s invading who?”
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
r3bl 7y ago
Because sanctions (on the Internet) will radicalize younger people. Iran happens to have an abundance of them: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Iran-age-pyramid.svg/2560px-Iran-age-pyramid.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Ir... If you want to help them, you don't do so by cutting them access to the information. Iran is not a dictatorship, it's a theocracy. Like literally everywhere else, the more people are educated, the less likely they are to let religion govern their lives. Young women are already protesting compulsory hijabs since December 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9319_Iranian_protests_against_compulsory_hjab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9319_Iranian_protes... Now I understand that you're from Israel which makes you too affected to look at the problem objectively, but the best way to help young people under an oppressive regime is to stay the fuck away and let them do what they must. The worst thing you could possibly do is to give them additional boundaries that they have to go through to access the information from the outside.
- Muromec 7y ago
  >If you want to help them, you don't do so by cutting them access to the information Worked wonders with Russia, right? At least those young people could use foss to better target artillery strikes in Eastern Ukraine to pay off their mortage.
  - r3bl 7y ago
    Russian population changes in waves ever since that one generation got obliterated by WW2. It never had >50% of the population being <30 years old (as Iran did in the last census). Last time there was a surplus of young people within Russia, nobody had widespread Internet access, and certainly not people in Russia. Your analogy (and knowledge of history) is really, really terrible.
    - anon_shitposter 7y ago
      > "It didn't work with a small group, so we should try again with a large group! Also, here's a personal insult." Your brain on politics, folks.
vms20591 7y ago
> They are supporting and funding the Houthis in Yemen who are responsible for the civil war and attacks on Saudi Arabia and Gulf states. They are supporting, funding and arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, both of which are recognized terrorist groups intent on murdering Jews. Saudi does the same, by arming the opposite side. > Finally, Iran hangs gays from cranes. There are right wing fanatics in the "West" who openly are against LGBTQ, trolling them IRL and on social media. Some, calling for violence as well. Pushing those people to depression or cornering them in society, is as worse as hanging them. > They are responsible for historical attacks on US forces in Lebanon during the 80s which killed hundreds of Americans Like the US warship that blew up a civilian airliner and the officers who got medals for that? Whatever you said about Iran, is applicable to the other side as well. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys" here. So, everyone has blood on their hands one way or the other. The west should practice what it preaches to the word, not pick and choose. You don't want yet another Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Syria situation. Let the people of the nation decide their fate. I for one, don't believe in any religion and it should have no place in this world. Many problems might go away.
- flyinglizard 7y ago
  "There are right wing fanatics in the "West" who openly are against LGBTQ, trolling them IRL and on social media. Some, calling for violence as well. Pushing those people to depression or cornering them in society, is as worse as hanging them." Go find yourself some Iranian expat friends and ask them what it's really like to live under the rule of Mullahs, then come back and check if your moral relativism has taken a turn.
  - vms20591 7y ago
    I know that Iran is worse, but the West is no saint either, with the atrocities it does around the world. Your country/government is always good when you're not on its bad side. Same goes for mine as well.
    - grumdan 7y ago
      > [...] is as worse as hanging them > I know that Iran is worse Which one is it?
gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
One could say a lot of the same things about the USA or UK or Israel (especially Israel with their ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine).
- flyinglizard 7y ago
  One could say many things, it does not mean any of them is correct.
ben_w 7y ago
As Shakespeare wrote, “A plague o' both your houses!” — Iran’s sins should not result in the USA being surprised by their reactions. Sanctions will affect the entire nation (isn’t that the point, to reduce war fighting capacity while giving the target a get rich quick scheme called “stop attacking our interests”?) and that necessarily makes the nation imposing the sanction unpopular with many of the population that has been sanctioned against (it’s an easy propaganda win to say “The Great Satan is responsible”). A failure to foresee this would be an error even if the USA was populated entirely by literal saints and angels; as it stands, human history is littered with so many genocides that it’s more like two drunks telling each other to stop looking at their pint. (And yes, my country is just as bad, and yes it doesn’t know that either).
q31 7y ago
Do you think Iran is worse than the US when it comes to foreign involvement, world domination, destabilising regions, arming militias, assassinations on foreign soil, ballistic missile programmes, proxy wars, human rights violations such as torture, etc.?
- flyinglizard 7y ago
  US promotes values I am interested in, while Iran promotes what to me seems like a nightmare. Those who are interested in the Iranian end goal should be supporting Iran, but then I have to wonder why Western people would be promoting the Iranian stance. It does not seem self serving.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    > "US promotes values I am interested in," What, like overthrowing democratically elected governments, as they did in Iran? I really hope neoconservativism dies with the boomers, but I fear you're young.
  - mijamo 7y ago
    US does not promote values, it promotes its influence. USA went against many progressive leaders in latin America because they were about to damage the US influence and economic interest. USA is completely fine with Saudi Arabia and its values, while not fine at all with Allende (or even De Gaulle in France).
  - codebolt 7y ago
    Quick question: Is there any action taken by the Israeli government or military in the past 20 years that you feel is worthy of criticism?
    - flyinglizard 7y ago
      Obviously, although I suspect some of my criticism of them and what you mean by “criticism” will be radically different.
  - 7y ago
jakobegger 7y ago
Because you are not sanctioning only the military and the government, you are sanctioning everyone in the country. You are sanctioning young people, who just want to live their lives, just like we do. They already suffer from the oppressive regime, and you just want to make their live even harder. All the Iranians I've met seem like completely normal people. I've never been to Iran, but from what I hear the young people in Iran aren't much different from the people here: They like to go to parties, listen to music, etc. The only difference is that they have to do it in hiding, and that they will get arrested when they do something like hold hands in public when they are not married. Why would anyone approve of sanctions that make these people suffer even more? And then, when these people start fleeing the country, asking for asylum, why do we turn them away?
- flyinglizard 7y ago
  At what point should we start to hold ordinary civilians responsible to the actions of their governments?
  - YayamiOmate 7y ago
    None? If they are under a regime and the government do not represent their will. At what point you start jailing children for their parent's actions? For any such action you should consider reason and effect. Do you have a good reason here and do you expect good results, or are yoy hust trying stuff out?
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    One serious question - why are you attempting to troll, here and now? Some proper purpose or just another boring monday? You seem to enjoy stirring emotions with your rather simplistic views. an edit - Iran topic, like many other topics, is a deeply complex one, where past actions create current complex environment. You reduce this topic to simplistic black/white view, which is incorrect on many levels and doesn't correspond to reality out there. Hence the honest question above when looking at your various posts in this topic
  - gdfasfklshg4 7y ago
dagaci 7y ago
What you are saying may be entirely true, but Iran is entirely balanced in the middle east by an equally savage and hostile neighbors. Otherwise Iran would have already overrun the region. Israel and Saudi Arabia are perpetually lobbying for USA to destroy Iran. Fortunately at this time Trump is not interested in adding another $5 trillion to national debt to fight other peoples wars. Lopsided politics? What is really interesting are Iranian the people on the ground, probably the most interesting population in the entire middle-east. They are actually far more liberally minded than most people imagine, they are very intelligent and capable and productive vs the region. I suspect that free from the Islamic-fascist dictatorship they would becoming extremely dominant in the economically and politically in very quick succession.
stunt 7y ago
> Now, why would anyone in their right mind oppose sanctioning this country? There is no point to bring selective events/actinos. That's just memory bias and it's called selective omission. It's like if someone just brings the atomic bombing of Japan without context. The irony is that, that is actually the regime we put in power in their country by our intervention. So whose fault is that? Sanctioning is the best way to support right wings in those countries. It's the best propaganda tool we can give them. What you want is to open dialogue, support democrat parties, make deal with them to let them show their people what benefits they get out of a deal. Which is exactly what P5+1 was trying to do before U.S. withdrawal by the new administration. And please don't say that deal wasn't enough, because it is a suprise to see intelligent, educated person expecting to have a 100% reform in a country in one day and one step.
Udik 7y ago
> Iran is on an unprecedented aggressive and violent push towards dominating the Middle East. So are the US's allies in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia. > They are deployed in Syria So are the US, after bringing chaos to it by funding and training rebels for billions of dollars. > They are sponsoring and arming Shiite militias in Iraq Profiting from the chaos and destruction brought by USA's invasion of Iraq. > They are supporting and funding the Houthis in Yemen who are responsible for the civil war And how are the US not responsible for the civil war in Syria then? > They are supporting, funding and arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, both of which are recognized terrorist groups intent on murdering Jews. I call them resistance armies against illegal Israeli occupation. The "murdering Jews" thing is pure propaganda (although it is true that decades of prepotence and occupation have fueled religious hatred- but this is the product of inflicted violence, not the prime driver of Hamas). > They are responsible for historical attacks on US forces in Lebanon during the 80s which killed hundreds of Americans The US has armed and funded Saddam in a war that killed at least half a million Iranians. > Iran is developing a ballistic missile program which is intended to threaten Western Europe Iran is certainly not going to start a war with western Europe- these programs are defensive, are meant to create a deterrent (a mutually assured destruction) in case of attacks- which are very likely, as we're seeing these days. As a sidenote, I find it interesting how the US get hysterical at the idea of countries acquiring defensive weapons, for example the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system. > Iran hangs gays from cranes This is true and obviously heinous, but it seems to be much rarer than it is generally thought. And sanctions and frontal aggression are not the way to improve the situation, it only further radicalizes the country.
select-all 7y ago
Because sanctions directly affect their families. The choice between letting your family to suffer and doing the right thing in the global scale of things is not really a choice. People always chose family. And that's why sanctions radicalize population of sanctioned countries and increase support of the ruling regime.
hrmon 7y ago
The cause of all conflicts in Middle East is Israel. Iran in Iraq and Syria? While US was happy with the rise of ISIS (you remember that? if no ask a Parisian) Iran was the one who fought it beside Iraq and Syria governments. Iran supporting Hezbollah? You suggest some other way to resist against Israel's expansionism. Not just Hezbollah, all of the Lebanon is against Israel. Yemen? I think the role of the aggressor and infanticide regime of Saudi Arabia is obvious now. Argentina? https://www.thenation.com/article/bushs-iranargentina-terror-frame/?page=0,2 https://www.thenation.com/article/bushs-iranargentina-terror... Europe? Oh, he has been a kind host for terrorist groups like MEK for years. Bullying Gulf states? It only reminds me of Saudi Arabia bullying Qatar. You have anything else in your mind? Missiles? Iran learned from Iraq invasion the only one he can rely on for support is himself. At that time Western countries were busy selling chemical weapons to Ba'athist government, the invader.
- sumedh 7y ago
  > The cause of all conflicts in Middle East is Israel. Can Iranian women be in public without the hijab, Iran should first focus on giving equal rights to half of the population instead of blaming Israel for everything.
gadders 7y ago
You forgot "Trying to develop nuclear weapons" from your list.
dang 7y ago
Please do not take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. That is just what we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

knowThySelfx 7y ago

One side of the story. But the thing is, intelligent people will want to know why?

flyinglizard 7y ago
Intelligent people already know why: Iran is interested to see Shiite Muslim groups proliferating, for religious as well as practical reasons. Iran is the leader of the Shiite world, in the same vein Saudi Arabia represents the Sunni world. This is why Iran supports Hezbollah (Shiite) over other groups in Lebanon, Houthis (who are not Shiite but oppose the Sunni majority) in Yemen, Shiite in Iraq, Bashar Al Assad (who is Alawite himself but closely aligned with the Shiite and opposing the Sunnis in Syria). The only place where Iran supports Sunnis is Gaza, and that's done to primarily weaken Israel which Iran perceives as its primary threat to regional hegemony.

dgellow 7y ago

> Now, why would anyone in their right mind oppose sanctioning this country? Just to answer your question, I don’t really have a position myself on the topic: Embargos target the general population, making things way more difficult for normal people who are just trying to live their lives. That can potentially create pressure for the people responsible for the evil actions and decisions you want to sanction, but as a side effect a lot more people are negatively impacted. That seems quite immoral to me.

flyinglizard 7y ago
The sanctions have real, tangible practical effects. It's not just about making them suffer. For example, Hezbollah who are almost exclusively funded by Iran, had their budget cut by half [0]. The military operations Iran undertakes in Syria which are intended to strategically threaten Israel have taken a cut. It's hard to justify supporting proxy wars when the population at home is hungry. [0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/as-iran-us-tensions-rise-with-drones-downed-hezbollah-readies-for-war-with-israel https://www.thedailybeast.com/as-iran-us-tensions-rise-with-...
- kweks 7y ago
  Hezbollah was created to expel the Israeli invasion in south Lebanon. [1] One thing is for sure: Middle East politics and history has no single (or correct) perspective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Lebanese_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Lebanese_confl...
  - flyinglizard 7y ago
    Now that Hezbollah covertly built five tunnels extending far into Israeli territory to attack Israeli civilians, you need to ask “who’s invading who?”
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

r3bl 7y ago

Because sanctions (on the Internet) will radicalize younger people. Iran happens to have an abundance of them: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Iran-age-pyramid.svg/2560px-Iran-age-pyramid.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Ir... If you want to help them, you don't do so by cutting them access to the information. Iran is not a dictatorship, it's a theocracy. Like literally everywhere else, the more people are educated, the less likely they are to let religion govern their lives. Young women are already protesting compulsory hijabs since December 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9319_Iranian_protests_against_compulsory_hjab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9319_Iranian_protes... Now I understand that you're from Israel which makes you too affected to look at the problem objectively, but the best way to help young people under an oppressive regime is to stay the fuck away and let them do what they must. The worst thing you could possibly do is to give them additional boundaries that they have to go through to access the information from the outside.

Muromec 7y ago
>If you want to help them, you don't do so by cutting them access to the information Worked wonders with Russia, right? At least those young people could use foss to better target artillery strikes in Eastern Ukraine to pay off their mortage.
- r3bl 7y ago
  Russian population changes in waves ever since that one generation got obliterated by WW2. It never had >50% of the population being <30 years old (as Iran did in the last census). Last time there was a surplus of young people within Russia, nobody had widespread Internet access, and certainly not people in Russia. Your analogy (and knowledge of history) is really, really terrible.
  - anon_shitposter 7y ago
    > "It didn't work with a small group, so we should try again with a large group! Also, here's a personal insult." Your brain on politics, folks.

vms20591 7y ago

> They are supporting and funding the Houthis in Yemen who are responsible for the civil war and attacks on Saudi Arabia and Gulf states. They are supporting, funding and arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, both of which are recognized terrorist groups intent on murdering Jews. Saudi does the same, by arming the opposite side. > Finally, Iran hangs gays from cranes. There are right wing fanatics in the "West" who openly are against LGBTQ, trolling them IRL and on social media. Some, calling for violence as well. Pushing those people to depression or cornering them in society, is as worse as hanging them. > They are responsible for historical attacks on US forces in Lebanon during the 80s which killed hundreds of Americans Like the US warship that blew up a civilian airliner and the officers who got medals for that? Whatever you said about Iran, is applicable to the other side as well. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys" here. So, everyone has blood on their hands one way or the other. The west should practice what it preaches to the word, not pick and choose. You don't want yet another Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Syria situation. Let the people of the nation decide their fate. I for one, don't believe in any religion and it should have no place in this world. Many problems might go away.

flyinglizard 7y ago
"There are right wing fanatics in the "West" who openly are against LGBTQ, trolling them IRL and on social media. Some, calling for violence as well. Pushing those people to depression or cornering them in society, is as worse as hanging them." Go find yourself some Iranian expat friends and ask them what it's really like to live under the rule of Mullahs, then come back and check if your moral relativism has taken a turn.
- vms20591 7y ago
  I know that Iran is worse, but the West is no saint either, with the atrocities it does around the world. Your country/government is always good when you're not on its bad side. Same goes for mine as well.
  - grumdan 7y ago
    > [...] is as worse as hanging them > I know that Iran is worse Which one is it?

gdfasfklshg4 7y ago

One could say a lot of the same things about the USA or UK or Israel (especially Israel with their ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine).

flyinglizard 7y ago
One could say many things, it does not mean any of them is correct.

ben_w 7y ago

As Shakespeare wrote, “A plague o' both your houses!” — Iran’s sins should not result in the USA being surprised by their reactions. Sanctions will affect the entire nation (isn’t that the point, to reduce war fighting capacity while giving the target a get rich quick scheme called “stop attacking our interests”?) and that necessarily makes the nation imposing the sanction unpopular with many of the population that has been sanctioned against (it’s an easy propaganda win to say “The Great Satan is responsible”). A failure to foresee this would be an error even if the USA was populated entirely by literal saints and angels; as it stands, human history is littered with so many genocides that it’s more like two drunks telling each other to stop looking at their pint. (And yes, my country is just as bad, and yes it doesn’t know that either).

q31 7y ago

Do you think Iran is worse than the US when it comes to foreign involvement, world domination, destabilising regions, arming militias, assassinations on foreign soil, ballistic missile programmes, proxy wars, human rights violations such as torture, etc.?

flyinglizard 7y ago
US promotes values I am interested in, while Iran promotes what to me seems like a nightmare. Those who are interested in the Iranian end goal should be supporting Iran, but then I have to wonder why Western people would be promoting the Iranian stance. It does not seem self serving.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  > "US promotes values I am interested in," What, like overthrowing democratically elected governments, as they did in Iran? I really hope neoconservativism dies with the boomers, but I fear you're young.
- mijamo 7y ago
  US does not promote values, it promotes its influence. USA went against many progressive leaders in latin America because they were about to damage the US influence and economic interest. USA is completely fine with Saudi Arabia and its values, while not fine at all with Allende (or even De Gaulle in France).
- codebolt 7y ago
  Quick question: Is there any action taken by the Israeli government or military in the past 20 years that you feel is worthy of criticism?
  - flyinglizard 7y ago
    Obviously, although I suspect some of my criticism of them and what you mean by “criticism” will be radically different.
- 7y ago

jakobegger 7y ago

Because you are not sanctioning only the military and the government, you are sanctioning everyone in the country. You are sanctioning young people, who just want to live their lives, just like we do. They already suffer from the oppressive regime, and you just want to make their live even harder. All the Iranians I've met seem like completely normal people. I've never been to Iran, but from what I hear the young people in Iran aren't much different from the people here: They like to go to parties, listen to music, etc. The only difference is that they have to do it in hiding, and that they will get arrested when they do something like hold hands in public when they are not married. Why would anyone approve of sanctions that make these people suffer even more? And then, when these people start fleeing the country, asking for asylum, why do we turn them away?

flyinglizard 7y ago
At what point should we start to hold ordinary civilians responsible to the actions of their governments?
- YayamiOmate 7y ago
  None? If they are under a regime and the government do not represent their will. At what point you start jailing children for their parent's actions? For any such action you should consider reason and effect. Do you have a good reason here and do you expect good results, or are yoy hust trying stuff out?
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  One serious question - why are you attempting to troll, here and now? Some proper purpose or just another boring monday? You seem to enjoy stirring emotions with your rather simplistic views. an edit - Iran topic, like many other topics, is a deeply complex one, where past actions create current complex environment. You reduce this topic to simplistic black/white view, which is incorrect on many levels and doesn't correspond to reality out there. Hence the honest question above when looking at your various posts in this topic
- gdfasfklshg4 7y ago

dagaci 7y ago

What you are saying may be entirely true, but Iran is entirely balanced in the middle east by an equally savage and hostile neighbors. Otherwise Iran would have already overrun the region. Israel and Saudi Arabia are perpetually lobbying for USA to destroy Iran. Fortunately at this time Trump is not interested in adding another $5 trillion to national debt to fight other peoples wars. Lopsided politics? What is really interesting are Iranian the people on the ground, probably the most interesting population in the entire middle-east. They are actually far more liberally minded than most people imagine, they are very intelligent and capable and productive vs the region. I suspect that free from the Islamic-fascist dictatorship they would becoming extremely dominant in the economically and politically in very quick succession.

stunt 7y ago

> Now, why would anyone in their right mind oppose sanctioning this country? There is no point to bring selective events/actinos. That's just memory bias and it's called selective omission. It's like if someone just brings the atomic bombing of Japan without context. The irony is that, that is actually the regime we put in power in their country by our intervention. So whose fault is that? Sanctioning is the best way to support right wings in those countries. It's the best propaganda tool we can give them. What you want is to open dialogue, support democrat parties, make deal with them to let them show their people what benefits they get out of a deal. Which is exactly what P5+1 was trying to do before U.S. withdrawal by the new administration. And please don't say that deal wasn't enough, because it is a suprise to see intelligent, educated person expecting to have a 100% reform in a country in one day and one step.

Udik 7y ago

> Iran is on an unprecedented aggressive and violent push towards dominating the Middle East. So are the US's allies in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia. > They are deployed in Syria So are the US, after bringing chaos to it by funding and training rebels for billions of dollars. > They are sponsoring and arming Shiite militias in Iraq Profiting from the chaos and destruction brought by USA's invasion of Iraq. > They are supporting and funding the Houthis in Yemen who are responsible for the civil war And how are the US not responsible for the civil war in Syria then? > They are supporting, funding and arming Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, both of which are recognized terrorist groups intent on murdering Jews. I call them resistance armies against illegal Israeli occupation. The "murdering Jews" thing is pure propaganda (although it is true that decades of prepotence and occupation have fueled religious hatred- but this is the product of inflicted violence, not the prime driver of Hamas). > They are responsible for historical attacks on US forces in Lebanon during the 80s which killed hundreds of Americans The US has armed and funded Saddam in a war that killed at least half a million Iranians. > Iran is developing a ballistic missile program which is intended to threaten Western Europe Iran is certainly not going to start a war with western Europe- these programs are defensive, are meant to create a deterrent (a mutually assured destruction) in case of attacks- which are very likely, as we're seeing these days. As a sidenote, I find it interesting how the US get hysterical at the idea of countries acquiring defensive weapons, for example the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system. > Iran hangs gays from cranes This is true and obviously heinous, but it seems to be much rarer than it is generally thought. And sanctions and frontal aggression are not the way to improve the situation, it only further radicalizes the country.

select-all 7y ago

Because sanctions directly affect their families. The choice between letting your family to suffer and doing the right thing in the global scale of things is not really a choice. People always chose family. And that's why sanctions radicalize population of sanctioned countries and increase support of the ruling regime.

hrmon 7y ago

The cause of all conflicts in Middle East is Israel. Iran in Iraq and Syria? While US was happy with the rise of ISIS (you remember that? if no ask a Parisian) Iran was the one who fought it beside Iraq and Syria governments. Iran supporting Hezbollah? You suggest some other way to resist against Israel's expansionism. Not just Hezbollah, all of the Lebanon is against Israel. Yemen? I think the role of the aggressor and infanticide regime of Saudi Arabia is obvious now. Argentina? https://www.thenation.com/article/bushs-iranargentina-terror-frame/?page=0,2 https://www.thenation.com/article/bushs-iranargentina-terror... Europe? Oh, he has been a kind host for terrorist groups like MEK for years. Bullying Gulf states? It only reminds me of Saudi Arabia bullying Qatar. You have anything else in your mind? Missiles? Iran learned from Iraq invasion the only one he can rely on for support is himself. At that time Western countries were busy selling chemical weapons to Ba'athist government, the invader.

sumedh 7y ago
> The cause of all conflicts in Middle East is Israel. Can Iranian women be in public without the hijab, Iran should first focus on giving equal rights to half of the population instead of blaming Israel for everything.

gadders 7y ago

You forgot "Trying to develop nuclear weapons" from your list.

dang 7y ago

Please do not take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. That is just what we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html