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> “Guys, 70 years have gone by! The current regime of Iran was not chosen by the CIA. It’s what happened when the Iranians chose their system of governance. For

> “Guys, 70 years have gone by! The current regime of Iran was not chosen by the CIA. It’s what happened when the Iranians chose their system of governance. For right or wrong, it’s theirs.” Really? The current regime in Iran and the fate of that country was a direct consequence of exactly what came before that. And that throughout the Middle East. That line of thinking is, honestly, either dumb or simply ignorant. But I guess not as stated: “My father’s view was that democracy was like two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner,” says Stewart, “and indeed in the Arab world it’s very much like that. My father wasn’t in the business of exporting democracy. He was in the business of getting the oil to the west by hook or by crook.”

CalChris 6y ago
He’s definitely not ignorant but when he’s talking about the results of his father’s actions I think rather than dumb I’d say self-serving.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  There's no rational reason to expect a drummer to have anything interesting or insightful to say about realpolitik.
  - golemotron 6y ago
    Commercial music is closer to realpolitik than most of us are in tech.
totalZero 6y ago
The Shah was ousted by Iranians and the new regime was put into place by Iranians. The revolution was expressly anti-American from the beginning. I don't deny foreign influence in the upheaval process, but certainly the US did not choose to replace the Shah with Khomeini. So, I don't understand your objection. It seems like a "butterfly effect" argument, where you are saying that anything done by one group of political actors is the cause of all subsequent events in that political sphere. I disagree with this; if we say that all subsequent events were caused by all preceding events, that may be true in some sense I suppose, but it needlessly blurs the definition of "causality" to the point where the word becomes altogether useless. On the other hand, there's a little bit of a "dream deferred" tone to what you're saying -- as though delaying the downfall of the monarchy only led to a more reactionary, less goal-oriented revolution later down the road. Maybe so, as not all of the revolutionary groups belonged to the same political ideology as Khomeini...but the new government was definitely chosen by the Iranian people.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Iran remains under embargo by the US to this day. It significantly impacts everything that goes on in that country. US policy continues to be a huge factor shaping Iran. That isn't "history." Acting like that's "history" is kind of like acting like the issues that Black Americans have currently has nothing at all to do with the fact that their ancestors came to this country as slaves and we continue to have racist policies in place, many of which were intentionally and consciously racist at the time that they were created. And we keep failing to really overturn them. (For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24059608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24059608)
  - totalZero 6y ago
    This is a complete non-sequitur.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      It really isn't. In both cases there is the identical desire to define some arbitrary point in time, before which all that transpired is mere "history", having no meaningful bearing on anything after. Which makes no sense, of course. You might just as well answer a "you break it, you buy it" sign in a shop with the claim that whatever breakage may or may not have happened, it's well in the past now, and there's no point trying on that basis to ascribe any kind of responsibility for the current situation to anyone except the shopkeeper, who clearly sees no problem with trying to sell broken merchandise. That doesn't strike me as an argument that would, or should, get anyone very far.
      - totalZero 6y ago
        The fact that a country or group of countries maintain economic sanctions on the country in 2020, tells us little about who dismantled its old regime in 1979. The commenter also plastered the same embargo commentary elsewhere in this post -- demonstrating its lack of specificity -- and makes no attempt to link the presence of sanctions to causality for the revolution. So yeah...it's a non-sequitur.
raxxorrax 6y ago
It is simply dumb. The CIA certainly didn't want Khomeini in power, but him being elected is certainly a direct consequence of the CIA toppling their democracy.
- Jugurtha 6y ago
  As it did with Iraq, Syria, Libya, and on and on. Ironically, this has pushed the world away from the U.S. towards Russia. Good job trying to further the interests of the U.S. by driving everyone away from it with chaos, and now a president drives the U.S. allies away from it. It didn't take long before Germany started getting closer to Russia. "Conclusive evidence", whether for Iraq or China, leads to a U.S. official dangling a vial of dried bat semen in front of the UN Security Council. It's exacerbated with reactions to events. The most recent of which is the "bounty" issue. Officials and journalists are outraged that Russian intelligence services allegedly gave money to Taliban to target U.S. troops. Anyone with half a brain would think: isn't this the same thing the CIA did by training Taliban on U.S. soil, with Special Forces, giving them RPGs, weapons and money to kill Soviet troops? I mean, the US/Taliban/Russia is almost a Vicky Cristina Barcelona triangle. The mere fact of these former intelligence officers and government officials being outraged is insulting. More on relations: Notice how Putin's speeches and interview differ from the usual U.S. diplomats and officials. U.S. officials and diplomats' speeches would piss off anyone with a functioning brain, it is the usual silly patriotism with wavy flags, exporting freedom and democracy, stars and stripes, and demagogy. No one can get away with that because the counter-examples are too many. This is bad salesmanship. In contrast, Putin takes the approach to explain the lay of the land, underplays his role, and takes the position of the underdog: "my job is to look for the Russian people, we're not as powerful as the U.S., look at what they did with all that power", and when people look, they agree. It's a very effective selling/recruiting strategy.
  - rjsw 6y ago
    As a European, I think we are more to blame for Libya than the US.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
> the fate of that country was a direct consequence of exactly what came before that. So then why don't we lay this at the feet of the British? The CIA was more or less trying to clean up a British mess when they installed the Shah. The middle east is turtles all the way down.
- zeveb 6y ago
  > The CIA was more or less trying to clean up a British mess when they installed the Shah. The CIA didn't install the Shah; he already was the ruler of the country. Nor did the CIA overthrow his insubordinate minister Mossadegh; the Shah's government did that.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état has a different story. See also the manner in which "the" Shah inherited his job from his father: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Shah#World_War_II_and_forced_abdication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Shah#World_War_II_and_for... Yes, ruler of the country may be arguable. I note that Churchill, not Elizabeth, is held responsible for the UK's actions. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/ https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Because US coup'ed the empire (as Orwell had predicted with "Airstrip One") in the mid 1950's[1]. The UK has certainly left many frozen conflicts still littered about the globe, but they get to tell the yanks "zabashcha" now. [1] Head of State: John Dulles. Head of CIA: Allen Dulles. As for Eleanor Dulles, she pretty much focused on european affairs, but had previously served in a wartime capacity on the "Board of Economic Warfare." (If that sounds insufficiently euphemised, recall that DoD was, in those pre-Orwellian times, simply the "War Department.") ==== From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United... it appears that the US refused to share nukes with the UK after the war, pulled Suez as the UK was attempting to independently develop megatonnage, but then relaunched the "special relationship" after Sputnik gave everyone a new appreciation for boffins.
Legogris 6y ago
Tangentially related, but for an Iranian story of this generation, Persepolis[0] is a fantastic movie. [0]: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/persepolis https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/persepolis
- z3c0 6y ago
  And also a great graphic novel series https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375422307/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OO.kFb606SDYE https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375422307/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OO...
golemotron 6y ago
> Really? The current regime in Iran and the fate of that country was a direct consequence of exactly what came before that. And that throughout the Middle East. And your opinion is a direct consequence of your experience and education. You still have agency, right?
- CalChris 6y ago
  You are equating books and guns. They are not the same.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    Last I checked, the US did not use guns to topple Mosaddegh.
- grugagag 6y ago
  Remember the rules on YC. You appear to either project or push ad-hominems. Thanks
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    I agree with your general point in this thread, but this accusation is unfair. There was no ad hominem. It was sort of a clumsy metaphor. This rules-whinging is even more obnoxious when it's completely misguided.
anonunivgrad 6y ago
You are confusing causation and fault/responsibility. They are only tangentially related concepts.
- grugagag 6y ago
  > You are confusing causation and fault/responsibility. They are only tangentially related concepts. I think you are the one confused. If you had some personal interest it would make some sense but it looks like you need to educate yourself on the topic a bit more. Don't take the status quo plainly, do some research, look into different sources
shirakawasuna 6y ago
After committing a coup and installing the Shah, the subsequent revolutionary forces found widespread support and success, but were split into factions. The two most concerning to the US and UK governments, and what they believed to be the most powerful and likely to assume power, were the theocrats and the leftists / communists. They decided to actively support the theocrats and undermine the leftists. Anyone suggesting that all of this was organic or purely democratic is at best naive, at worst cynically manipulative.
- totalZero 6y ago
  I think the caveat here is that communism was culturally incompatible with Iran. It was a country without a large domestically-owned industrial base, where the Shah and his father represented the strongest force toward modernization of the economy, with a multi-millenial history of monarchy and tribal fragmentation. This is not the same as, say, Latin America during the Cold War. There, the non-Western cultural antecedents came from indigenous cultures that were naturally collectivistic. Communism was a better cultural fit. It was perhaps hip to be involved with communism as a young student in Iran. Still....how do you turn a fragmented, tribal, and superstitious country, whose population is made up of several different ethnic demographics, into a communist nation? That was never a plausible outcome, so I doubt your theory that the US allowed the theocrats to win because it wanted to box out the communists. The US desired to maintain Iran's role as a security base and an investment hub. Neither the communists nor the followers of Khomeini would have allowed either of those two things to continue. Even today, despite years and years of aligning with China, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and other "leftist" regimes, Iran is not a communist nation. It is a resource-rich dictatorship with a resistance economy. I think you are over-extending your speculation by saying that Khomeini was the US's horse in the race when it became clear that the Shah would lose power. This is evidenced by the fact that the US assisted Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War shortly after the Revolution.
  - shirakawasuna 6y ago
    Communists had a long history in Iran dating back to the 00's (1900-1909) and were very popular in the 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. Iran industrialized around extraction and related industries as a quasi-colonial state, subject to Russian and (moreso) British interests. Communists there successfully organized general strikes and bought sweeping worker protections with their efforts. Iran was hardly infertile ground for collectivist organization or leftist politics. They were systematically killed, disrupted, and suppressed during the revolution.
mzs 6y ago
Here's the thing, the CIA almost failed and had to try again. It was unbelievably easy, all it would have taken is a handful of Iranians in power to do the right thing and report what was happening. Instead too many of them were corrupt. Further Mosaddegh was a very weird man and a target of the Soviets. If Britain and the US as their partners had not stepped-in, Iran very well could have fallen when the USSR's attention returned after Stalin's poor heath and death. https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthr...

CalChris 6y ago

He’s definitely not ignorant but when he’s talking about the results of his father’s actions I think rather than dumb I’d say self-serving.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
There's no rational reason to expect a drummer to have anything interesting or insightful to say about realpolitik.
- golemotron 6y ago
  Commercial music is closer to realpolitik than most of us are in tech.

totalZero 6y ago

The Shah was ousted by Iranians and the new regime was put into place by Iranians. The revolution was expressly anti-American from the beginning. I don't deny foreign influence in the upheaval process, but certainly the US did not choose to replace the Shah with Khomeini. So, I don't understand your objection. It seems like a "butterfly effect" argument, where you are saying that anything done by one group of political actors is the cause of all subsequent events in that political sphere. I disagree with this; if we say that all subsequent events were caused by all preceding events, that may be true in some sense I suppose, but it needlessly blurs the definition of "causality" to the point where the word becomes altogether useless. On the other hand, there's a little bit of a "dream deferred" tone to what you're saying -- as though delaying the downfall of the monarchy only led to a more reactionary, less goal-oriented revolution later down the road. Maybe so, as not all of the revolutionary groups belonged to the same political ideology as Khomeini...but the new government was definitely chosen by the Iranian people.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Iran remains under embargo by the US to this day. It significantly impacts everything that goes on in that country. US policy continues to be a huge factor shaping Iran. That isn't "history." Acting like that's "history" is kind of like acting like the issues that Black Americans have currently has nothing at all to do with the fact that their ancestors came to this country as slaves and we continue to have racist policies in place, many of which were intentionally and consciously racist at the time that they were created. And we keep failing to really overturn them. (For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24059608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24059608)
- totalZero 6y ago
  This is a complete non-sequitur.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    It really isn't. In both cases there is the identical desire to define some arbitrary point in time, before which all that transpired is mere "history", having no meaningful bearing on anything after. Which makes no sense, of course. You might just as well answer a "you break it, you buy it" sign in a shop with the claim that whatever breakage may or may not have happened, it's well in the past now, and there's no point trying on that basis to ascribe any kind of responsibility for the current situation to anyone except the shopkeeper, who clearly sees no problem with trying to sell broken merchandise. That doesn't strike me as an argument that would, or should, get anyone very far.
    - totalZero 6y ago
      The fact that a country or group of countries maintain economic sanctions on the country in 2020, tells us little about who dismantled its old regime in 1979. The commenter also plastered the same embargo commentary elsewhere in this post -- demonstrating its lack of specificity -- and makes no attempt to link the presence of sanctions to causality for the revolution. So yeah...it's a non-sequitur.

raxxorrax 6y ago

It is simply dumb. The CIA certainly didn't want Khomeini in power, but him being elected is certainly a direct consequence of the CIA toppling their democracy.

Jugurtha 6y ago
As it did with Iraq, Syria, Libya, and on and on. Ironically, this has pushed the world away from the U.S. towards Russia. Good job trying to further the interests of the U.S. by driving everyone away from it with chaos, and now a president drives the U.S. allies away from it. It didn't take long before Germany started getting closer to Russia. "Conclusive evidence", whether for Iraq or China, leads to a U.S. official dangling a vial of dried bat semen in front of the UN Security Council. It's exacerbated with reactions to events. The most recent of which is the "bounty" issue. Officials and journalists are outraged that Russian intelligence services allegedly gave money to Taliban to target U.S. troops. Anyone with half a brain would think: isn't this the same thing the CIA did by training Taliban on U.S. soil, with Special Forces, giving them RPGs, weapons and money to kill Soviet troops? I mean, the US/Taliban/Russia is almost a Vicky Cristina Barcelona triangle. The mere fact of these former intelligence officers and government officials being outraged is insulting. More on relations: Notice how Putin's speeches and interview differ from the usual U.S. diplomats and officials. U.S. officials and diplomats' speeches would piss off anyone with a functioning brain, it is the usual silly patriotism with wavy flags, exporting freedom and democracy, stars and stripes, and demagogy. No one can get away with that because the counter-examples are too many. This is bad salesmanship. In contrast, Putin takes the approach to explain the lay of the land, underplays his role, and takes the position of the underdog: "my job is to look for the Russian people, we're not as powerful as the U.S., look at what they did with all that power", and when people look, they agree. It's a very effective selling/recruiting strategy.
- rjsw 6y ago
  As a European, I think we are more to blame for Libya than the US.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

> the fate of that country was a direct consequence of exactly what came before that. So then why don't we lay this at the feet of the British? The CIA was more or less trying to clean up a British mess when they installed the Shah. The middle east is turtles all the way down.

zeveb 6y ago
> The CIA was more or less trying to clean up a British mess when they installed the Shah. The CIA didn't install the Shah; he already was the ruler of the country. Nor did the CIA overthrow his insubordinate minister Mossadegh; the Shah's government did that.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état has a different story. See also the manner in which "the" Shah inherited his job from his father: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Shah#World_War_II_and_forced_abdication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Shah#World_War_II_and_for... Yes, ruler of the country may be arguable. I note that Churchill, not Elizabeth, is held responsible for the UK's actions. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/ https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/
082349872349872 6y ago
Because US coup'ed the empire (as Orwell had predicted with "Airstrip One") in the mid 1950's[1]. The UK has certainly left many frozen conflicts still littered about the globe, but they get to tell the yanks "zabashcha" now. [1] Head of State: John Dulles. Head of CIA: Allen Dulles. As for Eleanor Dulles, she pretty much focused on european affairs, but had previously served in a wartime capacity on the "Board of Economic Warfare." (If that sounds insufficiently euphemised, recall that DoD was, in those pre-Orwellian times, simply the "War Department.") ==== From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United... it appears that the US refused to share nukes with the UK after the war, pulled Suez as the UK was attempting to independently develop megatonnage, but then relaunched the "special relationship" after Sputnik gave everyone a new appreciation for boffins.

Legogris 6y ago

Tangentially related, but for an Iranian story of this generation, Persepolis[0] is a fantastic movie. [0]: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/persepolis https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/persepolis

z3c0 6y ago
And also a great graphic novel series https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375422307/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OO.kFb606SDYE https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375422307/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OO...

golemotron 6y ago

> Really? The current regime in Iran and the fate of that country was a direct consequence of exactly what came before that. And that throughout the Middle East. And your opinion is a direct consequence of your experience and education. You still have agency, right?

CalChris 6y ago
You are equating books and guns. They are not the same.
- totalZero 6y ago
  Last I checked, the US did not use guns to topple Mosaddegh.
grugagag 6y ago
Remember the rules on YC. You appear to either project or push ad-hominems. Thanks
- jessaustin 6y ago
  I agree with your general point in this thread, but this accusation is unfair. There was no ad hominem. It was sort of a clumsy metaphor. This rules-whinging is even more obnoxious when it's completely misguided.

anonunivgrad 6y ago

You are confusing causation and fault/responsibility. They are only tangentially related concepts.

grugagag 6y ago
> You are confusing causation and fault/responsibility. They are only tangentially related concepts. I think you are the one confused. If you had some personal interest it would make some sense but it looks like you need to educate yourself on the topic a bit more. Don't take the status quo plainly, do some research, look into different sources

shirakawasuna 6y ago

After committing a coup and installing the Shah, the subsequent revolutionary forces found widespread support and success, but were split into factions. The two most concerning to the US and UK governments, and what they believed to be the most powerful and likely to assume power, were the theocrats and the leftists / communists. They decided to actively support the theocrats and undermine the leftists. Anyone suggesting that all of this was organic or purely democratic is at best naive, at worst cynically manipulative.

totalZero 6y ago
I think the caveat here is that communism was culturally incompatible with Iran. It was a country without a large domestically-owned industrial base, where the Shah and his father represented the strongest force toward modernization of the economy, with a multi-millenial history of monarchy and tribal fragmentation. This is not the same as, say, Latin America during the Cold War. There, the non-Western cultural antecedents came from indigenous cultures that were naturally collectivistic. Communism was a better cultural fit. It was perhaps hip to be involved with communism as a young student in Iran. Still....how do you turn a fragmented, tribal, and superstitious country, whose population is made up of several different ethnic demographics, into a communist nation? That was never a plausible outcome, so I doubt your theory that the US allowed the theocrats to win because it wanted to box out the communists. The US desired to maintain Iran's role as a security base and an investment hub. Neither the communists nor the followers of Khomeini would have allowed either of those two things to continue. Even today, despite years and years of aligning with China, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and other "leftist" regimes, Iran is not a communist nation. It is a resource-rich dictatorship with a resistance economy. I think you are over-extending your speculation by saying that Khomeini was the US's horse in the race when it became clear that the Shah would lose power. This is evidenced by the fact that the US assisted Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War shortly after the Revolution.
- shirakawasuna 6y ago
  Communists had a long history in Iran dating back to the 00's (1900-1909) and were very popular in the 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. Iran industrialized around extraction and related industries as a quasi-colonial state, subject to Russian and (moreso) British interests. Communists there successfully organized general strikes and bought sweeping worker protections with their efforts. Iran was hardly infertile ground for collectivist organization or leftist politics. They were systematically killed, disrupted, and suppressed during the revolution.

mzs 6y ago

Here's the thing, the CIA almost failed and had to try again. It was unbelievably easy, all it would have taken is a handful of Iranians in power to do the right thing and report what was happening. Instead too many of them were corrupt. Further Mosaddegh was a very weird man and a target of the Soviets. If Britain and the US as their partners had not stepped-in, Iran very well could have fallen when the USSR's attention returned after Stalin's poor heath and death. https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthr...