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> Iran threatens that all the time "Death to America" so if they don't like someone saying it back to them maybe they should stop? Have you ever thought to pau

> Iran threatens that all the time "Death to America" so if they don't like someone saying it back to them maybe they should stop? Have you ever thought to pause and wonder why they say that? Suppose you discovered that a UK oil company on your soil had been robbing you blind, and so you decided to nationalise your oil industry. In response to this, the UK and the US overthrew your government and installed a puppet regime. In this situation, I’m sure you would form a highly unfavourable view of the United States.

ericmay 11d ago
> Have you ever thought to pause and wonder why they say that? Yes I have, it's because authoritarian regimes need eternal, external enemies to mask their own failures as they pilfer the country. You talk about Iran being robbed blind, nobody forced them to spend all of their oil revenue funding militants in other countries that kill people while Tehran runs out of water and their people suffer. You seem to have this Euro-centric view that countries like Iran aren't responsible for their behavior or that they must be innocent because of some activities going on 70+ years ago (never mind, well, general history +- 30 or more years) but given that there are only a select few countries who are experiencing such circumstances (Iran, North Korea, Cuba) while most countries are just getting along peacefully, it makes more sense to understand that these countries are simply by virtue of their repressive governments the ones who are the actual problem. Iran can stop trying to build nuclear weapons and funding militants and then their problems will be solved. The world doesn't have to tolerate bad behavior now just because of alleged American or British bad behavior in the past. If you want to argue that Iran gets to be forever mad about 1953, then maybe the US gets to be mad at Canada for 1812?
- ioulaum 9d ago
  Why does this sound as much about Team Trump's behavior as about Iran? Also, Iran isn't as bad as you make it sound. Broadly, it's an okay-ish country. It would likely have become a liberal country by now if not for the sanctions... Their leadership's lifestyles certainly don't suggest that they want to be living in a country dominated by religion – even if they maintain that for the masses still. Being under attack makes people more conservative on average.
  - ericmay 9d ago
    > Why does this sound as much about Team Trump's behavior as about Iran? My guess would be because you're bringing in some prior baggage and over-indexing on Trump and not looking at the broader history and geopolitical situation. For example, Trump wasn't even president in 2023 when Iran launched an attack on Israel via it's proxies and later launched ballistic missiles at Israel. Now that's not absolving Israel of any wrongdoing or anything, but attacking them was never going to solve the problems in Palestine and it only pushed forward predictable responses. Diplomacy and international pressure are the only real options there, but once Iran attacked Israel you sort of lose that leverage as being peaceful. To your point about Iran becoming a liberal country if not for the sanctions, I don't see evidence for that. The west really tried and while I think it's stupid we did the JCPOA only to find Iran was still behaving poorly, funding militants to destabilize countries like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and more, never mind arguably still pursuing a nuclear weapon (remember they enriched uranium to 40% - 60%) under the JCPOA, again not that we should need a special snowflake agreement with Iran they can just not do these bad things. Liberal, democratic protestors even prior to the US attacking were killed. Over 30,000 of them. The sanctions that are there are there for a reason, and unfortunately there doesn't appear to be much evidence that Iran was liberalizing. > Being under attack makes people more conservative on average. Maybe but what does that matter? You can be conservative, which means respecting traditions and having different views without being hostile since quite literally billions of people around the planet in many countries do that every day. Also being conservative isn't a bad thing by definition despite what arrogant liberals think (which is itself a self-inflicted wound and has led to many setbacks toward their own goals). I'm liberal about some things, conservative about others and don't particularly align with either camp but I do reject these sorts of narratives.

ericmay 11d ago

> Have you ever thought to pause and wonder why they say that? Yes I have, it's because authoritarian regimes need eternal, external enemies to mask their own failures as they pilfer the country. You talk about Iran being robbed blind, nobody forced them to spend all of their oil revenue funding militants in other countries that kill people while Tehran runs out of water and their people suffer. You seem to have this Euro-centric view that countries like Iran aren't responsible for their behavior or that they must be innocent because of some activities going on 70+ years ago (never mind, well, general history +- 30 or more years) but given that there are only a select few countries who are experiencing such circumstances (Iran, North Korea, Cuba) while most countries are just getting along peacefully, it makes more sense to understand that these countries are simply by virtue of their repressive governments the ones who are the actual problem. Iran can stop trying to build nuclear weapons and funding militants and then their problems will be solved. The world doesn't have to tolerate bad behavior now just because of alleged American or British bad behavior in the past. If you want to argue that Iran gets to be forever mad about 1953, then maybe the US gets to be mad at Canada for 1812?

ioulaum 9d ago
Why does this sound as much about Team Trump's behavior as about Iran? Also, Iran isn't as bad as you make it sound. Broadly, it's an okay-ish country. It would likely have become a liberal country by now if not for the sanctions... Their leadership's lifestyles certainly don't suggest that they want to be living in a country dominated by religion – even if they maintain that for the masses still. Being under attack makes people more conservative on average.
- ericmay 9d ago
  > Why does this sound as much about Team Trump's behavior as about Iran? My guess would be because you're bringing in some prior baggage and over-indexing on Trump and not looking at the broader history and geopolitical situation. For example, Trump wasn't even president in 2023 when Iran launched an attack on Israel via it's proxies and later launched ballistic missiles at Israel. Now that's not absolving Israel of any wrongdoing or anything, but attacking them was never going to solve the problems in Palestine and it only pushed forward predictable responses. Diplomacy and international pressure are the only real options there, but once Iran attacked Israel you sort of lose that leverage as being peaceful. To your point about Iran becoming a liberal country if not for the sanctions, I don't see evidence for that. The west really tried and while I think it's stupid we did the JCPOA only to find Iran was still behaving poorly, funding militants to destabilize countries like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and more, never mind arguably still pursuing a nuclear weapon (remember they enriched uranium to 40% - 60%) under the JCPOA, again not that we should need a special snowflake agreement with Iran they can just not do these bad things. Liberal, democratic protestors even prior to the US attacking were killed. Over 30,000 of them. The sanctions that are there are there for a reason, and unfortunately there doesn't appear to be much evidence that Iran was liberalizing. > Being under attack makes people more conservative on average. Maybe but what does that matter? You can be conservative, which means respecting traditions and having different views without being hostile since quite literally billions of people around the planet in many countries do that every day. Also being conservative isn't a bad thing by definition despite what arrogant liberals think (which is itself a self-inflicted wound and has led to many setbacks toward their own goals). I'm liberal about some things, conservative about others and don't particularly align with either camp but I do reject these sorts of narratives.