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Afghanistan in the 70's is proof of that. When the cities started modernizing, including education more women and giving them more freedoms, the people in the c

by 22SAS 4y ago

Afghanistan in the 70's is proof of that. When the cities started modernizing, including education more women and giving them more freedoms, the people in the countryside and the clerics got pissed off and deemed it un-Islamic. Shah or not, Iran would have had a revolution either way.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
It's a counterfactual, there is no "proof" of it at all.
- 22SAS 4y ago
  Sure sure. You keep believing that they'd be a great example of a functional democracy.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    If the coup was an inevitability then the CIA and MI6 got their hands dirty for nothing. Personally, I'll err on the side of giving them credit for the things they did, rather than absolving them of blame because of the way things might have gone.
triceratops 4y ago
We have no way to know for sure. Turkey managed to keep the religious hardliners out of power for nearly a century. Even now the people in power there are nowhere near the same as Iranian leadership. And there's still a chance Turkish democracy may recover.
yakak 4y ago
If anticommunist religious fundamentalists were an inevitable force of nature then the US and UK over paid.
tveita 4y ago
Well let's have a quick look at https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/af https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/af vs. https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/ir https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/ir. Afghanistan: Literacy rate 15-24 (2015): m 80.4%, f 29% Tertiary education rate (2020): m 15.1%, f 5.8% Iran: Literacy rate 15-24 (2016): m 98.3%, f 97.9% Tertiary education rate (2020): m 59.2%, f 57.2% I think your argument is completely invalid.
- 22SAS 4y ago
  The point was about being a modern democracy and not just literacy rates. You're cherry-picking to prove your point. Afghan literacy rates are abysmal because the Taliban follows a much more stricter interpretation of Islam than Iran does. Also, Iran wasn't invaded by two superpowers within the span of two decades like Afghanistan was.

by 22SAS 4y ago

MichaelCollins 4y ago

It's a counterfactual, there is no "proof" of it at all.

22SAS 4y ago
Sure sure. You keep believing that they'd be a great example of a functional democracy.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  If the coup was an inevitability then the CIA and MI6 got their hands dirty for nothing. Personally, I'll err on the side of giving them credit for the things they did, rather than absolving them of blame because of the way things might have gone.

triceratops 4y ago

We have no way to know for sure. Turkey managed to keep the religious hardliners out of power for nearly a century. Even now the people in power there are nowhere near the same as Iranian leadership. And there's still a chance Turkish democracy may recover.

yakak 4y ago

If anticommunist religious fundamentalists were an inevitable force of nature then the US and UK over paid.

tveita 4y ago

Well let's have a quick look at https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/af https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/af vs. https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/ir https://uis.unesco.org/en/country/ir. Afghanistan: Literacy rate 15-24 (2015): m 80.4%, f 29% Tertiary education rate (2020): m 15.1%, f 5.8% Iran: Literacy rate 15-24 (2016): m 98.3%, f 97.9% Tertiary education rate (2020): m 59.2%, f 57.2% I think your argument is completely invalid.

22SAS 4y ago
The point was about being a modern democracy and not just literacy rates. You're cherry-picking to prove your point. Afghan literacy rates are abysmal because the Taliban follows a much more stricter interpretation of Islam than Iran does. Also, Iran wasn't invaded by two superpowers within the span of two decades like Afghanistan was.