7 ms·

You don't think Iran's situation is also mostly its own doing?

by hersko 10mo ago

mattnewton 10mo ago
I personally am not well read on this, but I know lot of people blame the US and the UK since after they overthrew the democratically elected socialist government and installed a brutal dictator[0], the only elements that survived to oppose the dictatorship were hardened islamists, who later took power from the US backed Shah[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
- therobots927 10mo ago
  This is basic, commonly accepted history. That’s why all of the comments defending US actions deflect and blame the accomplices within Iran like the Shah.
  - mattnewton 10mo ago
    Absolutely, the qualifiers are mostly because I am not knowledgeable to say what caused the situation _now_, not because the facts of the US backed coup damaging Iran are at all in dispute.
    - reducesuffering 10mo ago
      Not absolutely. > not because the facts of the US backed coup damaging Iran are at all in dispute. I mean, they are, GP just admitted they stand corrected[0] and "democratically elected government" of Mossadegh is factually incorrect. Other comments have pointed out he was installed not by the people, but by the Shah and Majles, stopped 1952 elections when they didn't go his way, then tried to dissolve parliament and vest power solely in himself [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315989
      - cess11 10mo ago
        You're leaving out a lot of detail. Yes, Mossadegh stopped counting votes, claiming the election was corrupted by foreign influence, which it to some extent was. Less than half the members of the majlis that had thus been elected belonged to his own party, so that wasn't exactly a power grab for himself. In the events that followed his popularity rose and he tried to gather a government but was blocked by the shah, which made him even more popular, to the extent that the armed forces backed off from containing the demonstrations. It's against this background he sent a bill to the majlis that would give him six months of emergency powers to push through with his political program and the nationalisation, which was approved. After those six months he asked for another twelve months and got it, but his base had started to wither away and allies switched sides because the reforms didn't have enough effect fast enough in the international climate they were in. I.e. trade boycott and foreign influence operations and so on, which of course hurt his constituents. Some of his allies were also afraid that he might turn against them, hence they turned on him. Churchill convinced Eisenhower that Mossadegh were going to deport the shah, and then they launched the coup.
        reducesuffering 10mo ago
        I have no issue with the details, and appreciate the nuance here. I just object to people who frame the situation as "there is no dispute the US and UK overthrew a democratically elected Iranian government"
        cess11 10mo ago
        Perhaps it would be better framed as 'the US and UK conspired with local factions to overthrow the movement for democracy and liberation'.
smugma 10mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%2527%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%2527%C3%A9... A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mossadegh nationalized and refused to concede to western oil demands.
- stickfigure 10mo ago
  Yeah that was bad but you're skipping another revolution and more than 70 years of history. There's always some previous war.
  - geraneum 10mo ago
    > There's always some previous war. As in everywhere else.
- ch4s3 10mo ago
  This is sort of a bad and inaccurate summary of a much more complicated situation. Mossadegh was trying to dissolve parliament and was in conflict with the Shah before the British got involved. The Shah was already planning to try by constitutional means (which he had legal power to do) to remove Mossadegh. Would he have done it without British and US backing, is a debate for historians.
  - therobots927 10mo ago
    I don’t think any serious post WWII historians would agree with you. There was a concentrated effort by the UK and US to displace Mossadegh, who was democratically elected by the way. At the very least it disproves your unspoken assertion that the Iranians are primarily to blame for their problems when it’s been proven that the most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet were actively destabilizing their society so that oil revenue would continue flowing into western pockets.
    - adventured 10mo ago
      > who was democratically elected by the way He was everything but democratically elected. He was installed. The Iranian people did not elect Mosaddegh. He was put there by a Shah and the elites of the Majlis, neither of which ever represented the people of Iran. At no point in the past century has Iran had representative government. For the absurd 'democratically elected' premise to be true, there would have to be actual representative government. There wasn't, there isn't.
hvb2 10mo ago
The number of countries messing around in that region is long.... From the US, Russia and china to local powers like Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran themselves. Either you're a scholar studying the region, if not your comment feels naive at best
- ch4s3 10mo ago
  Ultimately comments like this deny the agency of people who actually make decisions in these countries.
  - therobots927 10mo ago
    When a country with vastly superior resources intervenes in the affairs of a country with less, then it tips the scales in an unnatural way. Do they depend on greedy, self interested members of Iranian society to succeed? Of course. But that doesn’t excuse western behavior at all.
    - ch4s3 10mo ago
      My point is that western behavior has really nothing to do with Iran going on a foolish dam building spree, or over pumping in a foolish attempt to grow water hungry crops in arid mountain plateaus.
      - therobots927 10mo ago
        Kind of like how the US built Phoenix and LA in the middle of the desert, and allows farming in the desert as well, setting the stage for a near term water crisis in the region when the Rocky Mountain snow melt gets cut in half?
        ch4s3 10mo ago
        Essentially, yes. Lots of places manage water poorly. You're basically making my point for me.
        10mo ago
some_random 10mo ago
No, you see the instant a western power interferes with a region, all agency is immediately stripped from every single person there. It's really sad, they all become puppets or automatons reacting purely to external stimulus.
- wonderwonder 10mo ago
  Worst part is the agency never returns. Anything that goes wrong for the next 500 years is due to that original western intereference. Tragic really.
  - pphysch 10mo ago
    The West hasn't stopped interfering in Iran though. They did massive terrorist attacks there just a year ago. Israel would openly salivate at the prospect of destroying Iranian agriculture and water supply. China is an interesting counterfactual. Circa 2010 when Xi came to power, the CPC also essentially destroyed the CIA's footprint in the country, something that was not widely reported in the West. And PRC has done very well since...
    - wahern 10mo ago
      > Circa 2010 when Xi came to power, the CPC also essentially destroyed the CIA's footprint in the country, something that was not widely reported in the West. And PRC has done very well since... The PRC was doing just as fine before they executed all the CIA's agents. I don't see any relation. There's never been any hint from either the US or China that those agents were doing anything other than passive intelligence collection, as opposed to actively interfering in domestic Chinese politics. And in any event, the scope of historical CIA operations has always been overblown. In every case I'm aware of, the CIA leveraged a tipping point already well underway to nudge things one way or another. Developing countries are often already highly unstable and prone to regular disruptive power shifts; it's a major cause of their poverty and inability to fully develop. And in many of the outright coups the CIA has been implicated, the extent of the CIA's involvement was simply talking to and making promises to various power players already poised to make a power grab, Chile being a prime example--the Chilean Senate was the architect of the coup, and the CIA merely offered safe harbor to nudge Pinochet, who was waffling because he wasn't convinced it would succeed. The exceptions were during the middle of the Cold War, ancient history in modern foreign affairs. The KGB/FSB has always been lauded for opportunistically taking advantage of preexisting situations with small but smart manipulations, but that's just how intelligence agencies have always worked in general. When your interventions are too direct and obvious, which they always will be if you're creating a crisis from scratch, you risk unifying the country, Iran being a prime example.

You don't think Iran's situation is also mostly its own doing?

by hersko 10mo ago

You don't think Iran's situation is also mostly its own doing?

I personally am not well read on this, but I know lot of people blame the US and the UK since after they overthrew the democratically elected socialist government and installed a brutal dictator[0], the only elements that survived to oppose the dictatorship were hardened islamists, who later took power from the US backed Shah[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

therobots927 10mo ago
This is basic, commonly accepted history. That’s why all of the comments defending US actions deflect and blame the accomplices within Iran like the Shah.
- mattnewton 10mo ago
  Absolutely, the qualifiers are mostly because I am not knowledgeable to say what caused the situation _now_, not because the facts of the US backed coup damaging Iran are at all in dispute.
  - reducesuffering 10mo ago
    Not absolutely. > not because the facts of the US backed coup damaging Iran are at all in dispute. I mean, they are, GP just admitted they stand corrected[0] and "democratically elected government" of Mossadegh is factually incorrect. Other comments have pointed out he was installed not by the people, but by the Shah and Majles, stopped 1952 elections when they didn't go his way, then tried to dissolve parliament and vest power solely in himself [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315989
    - cess11 10mo ago
      You're leaving out a lot of detail. Yes, Mossadegh stopped counting votes, claiming the election was corrupted by foreign influence, which it to some extent was. Less than half the members of the majlis that had thus been elected belonged to his own party, so that wasn't exactly a power grab for himself. In the events that followed his popularity rose and he tried to gather a government but was blocked by the shah, which made him even more popular, to the extent that the armed forces backed off from containing the demonstrations. It's against this background he sent a bill to the majlis that would give him six months of emergency powers to push through with his political program and the nationalisation, which was approved. After those six months he asked for another twelve months and got it, but his base had started to wither away and allies switched sides because the reforms didn't have enough effect fast enough in the international climate they were in. I.e. trade boycott and foreign influence operations and so on, which of course hurt his constituents. Some of his allies were also afraid that he might turn against them, hence they turned on him. Churchill convinced Eisenhower that Mossadegh were going to deport the shah, and then they launched the coup.
      - reducesuffering 10mo ago
        I have no issue with the details, and appreciate the nuance here. I just object to people who frame the situation as "there is no dispute the US and UK overthrew a democratically elected Iranian government"
        cess11 10mo ago
        Perhaps it would be better framed as 'the US and UK conspired with local factions to overthrow the movement for democracy and liberation'.

smugma 10mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%2527%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%2527%C3%A9... A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mossadegh nationalized and refused to concede to western oil demands.

stickfigure 10mo ago
Yeah that was bad but you're skipping another revolution and more than 70 years of history. There's always some previous war.
- geraneum 10mo ago
  > There's always some previous war. As in everywhere else.
ch4s3 10mo ago
This is sort of a bad and inaccurate summary of a much more complicated situation. Mossadegh was trying to dissolve parliament and was in conflict with the Shah before the British got involved. The Shah was already planning to try by constitutional means (which he had legal power to do) to remove Mossadegh. Would he have done it without British and US backing, is a debate for historians.
- therobots927 10mo ago
  I don’t think any serious post WWII historians would agree with you. There was a concentrated effort by the UK and US to displace Mossadegh, who was democratically elected by the way. At the very least it disproves your unspoken assertion that the Iranians are primarily to blame for their problems when it’s been proven that the most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet were actively destabilizing their society so that oil revenue would continue flowing into western pockets.
  - adventured 10mo ago
    > who was democratically elected by the way He was everything but democratically elected. He was installed. The Iranian people did not elect Mosaddegh. He was put there by a Shah and the elites of the Majlis, neither of which ever represented the people of Iran. At no point in the past century has Iran had representative government. For the absurd 'democratically elected' premise to be true, there would have to be actual representative government. There wasn't, there isn't.

hvb2 10mo ago

The number of countries messing around in that region is long.... From the US, Russia and china to local powers like Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran themselves. Either you're a scholar studying the region, if not your comment feels naive at best

ch4s3 10mo ago
Ultimately comments like this deny the agency of people who actually make decisions in these countries.
- therobots927 10mo ago
  When a country with vastly superior resources intervenes in the affairs of a country with less, then it tips the scales in an unnatural way. Do they depend on greedy, self interested members of Iranian society to succeed? Of course. But that doesn’t excuse western behavior at all.
  - ch4s3 10mo ago
    My point is that western behavior has really nothing to do with Iran going on a foolish dam building spree, or over pumping in a foolish attempt to grow water hungry crops in arid mountain plateaus.
    - therobots927 10mo ago
      Kind of like how the US built Phoenix and LA in the middle of the desert, and allows farming in the desert as well, setting the stage for a near term water crisis in the region when the Rocky Mountain snow melt gets cut in half?
      - ch4s3 10mo ago
        Essentially, yes. Lots of places manage water poorly. You're basically making my point for me.
      - 10mo ago

some_random 10mo ago

No, you see the instant a western power interferes with a region, all agency is immediately stripped from every single person there. It's really sad, they all become puppets or automatons reacting purely to external stimulus.

wonderwonder 10mo ago
Worst part is the agency never returns. Anything that goes wrong for the next 500 years is due to that original western intereference. Tragic really.
- pphysch 10mo ago
  The West hasn't stopped interfering in Iran though. They did massive terrorist attacks there just a year ago. Israel would openly salivate at the prospect of destroying Iranian agriculture and water supply. China is an interesting counterfactual. Circa 2010 when Xi came to power, the CPC also essentially destroyed the CIA's footprint in the country, something that was not widely reported in the West. And PRC has done very well since...
  - wahern 10mo ago
    > Circa 2010 when Xi came to power, the CPC also essentially destroyed the CIA's footprint in the country, something that was not widely reported in the West. And PRC has done very well since... The PRC was doing just as fine before they executed all the CIA's agents. I don't see any relation. There's never been any hint from either the US or China that those agents were doing anything other than passive intelligence collection, as opposed to actively interfering in domestic Chinese politics. And in any event, the scope of historical CIA operations has always been overblown. In every case I'm aware of, the CIA leveraged a tipping point already well underway to nudge things one way or another. Developing countries are often already highly unstable and prone to regular disruptive power shifts; it's a major cause of their poverty and inability to fully develop. And in many of the outright coups the CIA has been implicated, the extent of the CIA's involvement was simply talking to and making promises to various power players already poised to make a power grab, Chile being a prime example--the Chilean Senate was the architect of the coup, and the CIA merely offered safe harbor to nudge Pinochet, who was waffling because he wasn't convinced it would succeed. The exceptions were during the middle of the Cold War, ancient history in modern foreign affairs. The KGB/FSB has always been lauded for opportunistically taking advantage of preexisting situations with small but smart manipulations, but that's just how intelligence agencies have always worked in general. When your interventions are too direct and obvious, which they always will be if you're creating a crisis from scratch, you risk unifying the country, Iran being a prime example.