4 ms·

> When someone mentions Iran, what images leap into your mind? Ayatollahs, religious fanaticism, veiled women? No, that's Saudi Arabia you're thinking of. You

by pluma 12y ago

> When someone mentions Iran, what images leap into your mind? Ayatollahs, religious fanaticism, veiled women? No, that's Saudi Arabia you're thinking of. You know, the "good" theocracy that's one of our biggest business partners. Despite the foreign politics a few years ago, Iran is reportedly rather moderate in practice.

adventured 12y ago
Isn't Iran still backing numerous terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, while proclaiming it their goal to essentially kill everyone in Israel? What's so moderate about having an extremely oppressive theocracy as the foundation of your political leadership? One need only look at the revolts of a few years ago and how Iran dealt with that, to see exactly how non-moderate they are in practice. And before you jump to saying: but America does X, and Saudi does X - yes, and such things do not alter or justify the terrible things that Iran does.
- ancap 12y ago
  >Isn't Iran still backing numerous terrorist organizations, including Hezbolla source? >while proclaiming it their goal to essentially kill everyone in Israel? source?
  - adventured 12y ago
    "Iranian Official Calls to 'Wipe Out the Zionist Regime'" http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190543 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190543 "A chillingly detailed guide to "the proper way of eliminating Israel" – tweeted out by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – is threatening to throw nuclear talks with Tehran into chaos" http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-twitter-plan/2014/11/10/id/606533/ http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-twit... "Israel should be wiped off map, says Iran's president" http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/27/israel.iran http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/27/israel.iran Re Hezbollah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah "Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged Tuesday for the first time that his militant movement received financial and material support from Iran, but denied it took instructions from the Islamic Republic." http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-lebanon-hezbollah-idUSTRE81629H20120207 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-lebanon-hezboll... http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.637941 http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.637... http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/24/hezbollah-ready-to-do-whatever-iran-asks-in-support-of-shadow-war-with-the-west-author-says/ http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/24/hezbollah-ready-to-d... http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/hizbollah.html http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/hizbol...
    - smnrchrds 12y ago
      Two points: 1. The twitter account does not really belong to Khamenei. There is no mention of it on his official website and no blue check-mark. 2. We all hate Ahmedinejad. He did a lot of things that ranged from awful, like destroying our economy, to stupid, like eliminating daylight saving time one year only to bring it back the next year, or merging two universities in the course of a week and changing his mind about it several months later. In addition to being stupid in his actions, he was stupid about what he said. You can say he had a bit of a faux pas problem, like a certain current US politician, but much worth. For example, after his first speech in UN general assembly, he was caught on tape saying that "I felt an aurora of light engulfing me as I gave my speech", apparently mistaking the spotlight with something more supernatural. For the whole 8 years, he was a living, talking, (and unfortunately) governing joke. We learned not to take a single word out of his mouth seriously early in his term. Quoting him regarding Iran's foreign policy is some sort of out-of-context quote or selection bias. He said a lot of stupid things. Don't take him seriously.
      - adventured 12y ago
        The Twitter account is a direct mouth piece for Khamenei. It's five years old, has almost 100k followers, Iran has never denied its legitimacy, and pretty much every major news outlet refers to it as being legitimate. It's beyond obvious that it is theirs. "The unverified Twitter account, widely accepted as the mouthpiece of the Ayatollah's social media campaign, often posts diatribes against the West and Israel to its more than 91,000 followers." http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/29/world/meast/ayatollah-tweet-abdelaziz/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/29/world/meast/ayatollah-tweet-ab... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/28/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-twitter-michael-brown-shooting http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/28/ayatollah-ali-k...
      - pekk 12y ago
        No reason to hate Ahmedinejad more than the rest of the masks that Khamenei puts over his face. Mismanaging universities is a fine old tradition of the Revolution.
    - ancap 12y ago
- pluma 12y ago
  Islam is a bit more complex than "Iran supports Hezbollah, so they support terrorists". Look into the Sunni vs Shia split some time and then look at which organizations and countries identify with which side of that split. Saudi Arabia is far worse than Iran. While Iran's strict theocracy is slowly falling out of favour with its population, Saudi Arabia is quite effective at perpetuating its theocracy thanks to its wealth and international relationships. It's not just that Saudi Arabia does some bad stuff. It does the same bad stuff as Iran -- and worse -- yet we (and in this case I mean us, Germany, in particular) sell weapons and military equipment to the Saudis and buy their oil while sanctioning Iran. I'm an atheist, so I'm strictly opposed to any form of religious influence on politics (be it Muslim, Christian or Jewish). But you have to acknowledge that Iran is taking a turn towards the better while Saudi Arabia sits comfortably in a Bronze Age form of government and legal system (with full access to the Post-Space Age technology we are selling them).
  - adventured 12y ago
    No, if you support a terrorist organization, then you support terrorists. I said nothing about Islam. Supporting terrorists has nothing to do with Islam. Iran supporting Hezbollah has to do with Iran supporting terrorists. I never said Saudi or Iran were worse. That has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. This isn't an argument over what the worst country on earth is. My point was: Iran is an oppressive theocracy that directly finances terrorism. They are, very blatantly. And if Saudi is worse, that does not mean Iran isn't still an oppressive theocracy.
    - pluma 12y ago
      I'm not really disagreeing then, I'm just failing to see your point. Iran is an oppressive theocracy. Saudi Arabia is an oppressive theocracy. Both of them support people/groups we would call terrorists. The only regard in which Iran is somehow worse than Saudi Arabia is that they have a more outspoken hate of Israel while the Saudis are clever enough to avoid speaking too badly about a country in their region that is a close ally to the countries they're so good at doing business with. One country being worse than another doesn't make the other country any better. I'm not saying Iran is moderate. It's just a heck of a lot more moderate (in practice) than Saudi Arabia, a country that televises PSAs that women shouldn't drive and that you better don't skip on any of your prayers throughout the day because God will literally kill you if you do that.
- acqq 12y ago
  Just two details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_a... "The hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda, and 15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia." http://www.economist.com/news/international/21640325-international-outrage-halts-saudi-punishmentbut-how-long-victim-hypocrites http://www.economist.com/news/international/21640325-interna... "THE Middle East is a black spot for free speech. Its countries come near the bottom in rankings of press freedom, and most criminalise blasphemy and apostasy (renouncing Islam). But even by such dismal standards, Saudi Arabia stands out. Penalties for transgressing its religious and political strictures, even in word, include hefty fines and jail sentences, beatings and beheadings. Human Rights Watch, a monitoring group, notes a surge in executions since August. By some counts at least ten people have been put to death so far this year."
  - adventured 12y ago
    You post that like I wouldn't know about the Saudi hijackers. What does that have to do with Iran? I even attempted to put a stop to such replies at the bottom of my post. Because Saudi does X, that does not relieve Iran from what they do, or the religious based oppression they enslave their people under.
    - acqq 12y ago
      I see you quote that Iranian government is against Israel, that is indisputable. pluma started the subject of Saudis being even worse than Iran but covered completely differently by the US media, which I think is also indisputable. Saudis beatings and beheadings news are easy to find and they are the very clear examples of religious oppression they enslave their people under. Can you quote the same acts of Iranians to their people?
      - adventured 12y ago
        When did I say anything about Saudi being worse or better than Iran? When did I deny anything that Saudi does? You're failing on logical separation of discussion. Because I say X, does not mean I agree with or deny or support Z. I've even tried to specifically note this, so that I wouldn't get endless replies about how Saudi Arabia is worse than Iran.
- pekk 12y ago
  Of course it's no real controversy that the Islamic Republic is radical, it is a Revolution which always had radical aims and its power has always been founded on violence. Bearing in mind that Hezbollah is a terrorist group according to the US State Department because it is engaged in military conflict with Israel, the Islamic Republic has many reasons to maintain its patronage of Hezbollah, most of which relate to Hezbollah's ability to make war whether or not we consider that terrorist. Iranian national interest is not to try to cozy up to the US or Israel. Iranians legitimately fear reprises of the traumatic Iran-Iraq war. They have defense interests in the region. The US is not offering to defend Iran. The US can't defend anyone in the region even if it wanted to - look at what happened to poor Georgia and now Ukraine, which are not even majority Muslim countries. So we are asking Iran to cut off Hezbollah, but not replace it - there are no established alternatives. Who can offer them reliable allegiance, the bones of PLO? The political class needs to maintain popular focus on external enemies to maintain the internal cohesion of Iran itself in spite of relatively brutal restrictions enforced with secret police and gulags. They need to feed their religious base, after all their whole legitimacy is based on religion. They also need concessions to Iranian nationalists who like to see Iran being a regional power. It also buys a certain amount of goodwill in the Ummah to make noise about helping Palestine fight Israel. When the majority of the Ummah is Sunni and a very large and important segment is Arab, that kind of goodwill is a little harder to buy for a Shiite theocracy dominated by ethnic Persians. Anyway, Iran is so entrenched in its proxy war with Israel that it can't really back out. So it needs Hezbollah. If you are worried for Israel and you want Iran's threat to Israel to end, then Israel has to make good with Palestine with significant concessions, and then the Islamic Republic's position will be correspondingly eroded. Unfortunately it looks like Israel's political class has become dominated by an intransigent ultranationalist wing which decided to intentionally and permanently cut off any possible basis for conciliation by fragmenting any possible territory into a completely indivisible foam, which ultimately just feeds the Islamic Republic.

by pluma 12y ago

adventured 12y ago

Isn't Iran still backing numerous terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, while proclaiming it their goal to essentially kill everyone in Israel? What's so moderate about having an extremely oppressive theocracy as the foundation of your political leadership? One need only look at the revolts of a few years ago and how Iran dealt with that, to see exactly how non-moderate they are in practice. And before you jump to saying: but America does X, and Saudi does X - yes, and such things do not alter or justify the terrible things that Iran does.

ancap 12y ago
>Isn't Iran still backing numerous terrorist organizations, including Hezbolla source? >while proclaiming it their goal to essentially kill everyone in Israel? source?
- adventured 12y ago
  "Iranian Official Calls to 'Wipe Out the Zionist Regime'" http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190543 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190543 "A chillingly detailed guide to "the proper way of eliminating Israel" – tweeted out by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – is threatening to throw nuclear talks with Tehran into chaos" http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-twitter-plan/2014/11/10/id/606533/ http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-twit... "Israel should be wiped off map, says Iran's president" http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/27/israel.iran http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/27/israel.iran Re Hezbollah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah "Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged Tuesday for the first time that his militant movement received financial and material support from Iran, but denied it took instructions from the Islamic Republic." http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-lebanon-hezbollah-idUSTRE81629H20120207 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-lebanon-hezboll... http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.637941 http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.637... http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/24/hezbollah-ready-to-do-whatever-iran-asks-in-support-of-shadow-war-with-the-west-author-says/ http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/24/hezbollah-ready-to-d... http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/hizbollah.html http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/hizbol...
  - smnrchrds 12y ago
    Two points: 1. The twitter account does not really belong to Khamenei. There is no mention of it on his official website and no blue check-mark. 2. We all hate Ahmedinejad. He did a lot of things that ranged from awful, like destroying our economy, to stupid, like eliminating daylight saving time one year only to bring it back the next year, or merging two universities in the course of a week and changing his mind about it several months later. In addition to being stupid in his actions, he was stupid about what he said. You can say he had a bit of a faux pas problem, like a certain current US politician, but much worth. For example, after his first speech in UN general assembly, he was caught on tape saying that "I felt an aurora of light engulfing me as I gave my speech", apparently mistaking the spotlight with something more supernatural. For the whole 8 years, he was a living, talking, (and unfortunately) governing joke. We learned not to take a single word out of his mouth seriously early in his term. Quoting him regarding Iran's foreign policy is some sort of out-of-context quote or selection bias. He said a lot of stupid things. Don't take him seriously.
    - adventured 12y ago
      The Twitter account is a direct mouth piece for Khamenei. It's five years old, has almost 100k followers, Iran has never denied its legitimacy, and pretty much every major news outlet refers to it as being legitimate. It's beyond obvious that it is theirs. "The unverified Twitter account, widely accepted as the mouthpiece of the Ayatollah's social media campaign, often posts diatribes against the West and Israel to its more than 91,000 followers." http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/29/world/meast/ayatollah-tweet-abdelaziz/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/29/world/meast/ayatollah-tweet-ab... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/28/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-twitter-michael-brown-shooting http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/28/ayatollah-ali-k...
    - pekk 12y ago
      No reason to hate Ahmedinejad more than the rest of the masks that Khamenei puts over his face. Mismanaging universities is a fine old tradition of the Revolution.
  - ancap 12y ago
pluma 12y ago
Islam is a bit more complex than "Iran supports Hezbollah, so they support terrorists". Look into the Sunni vs Shia split some time and then look at which organizations and countries identify with which side of that split. Saudi Arabia is far worse than Iran. While Iran's strict theocracy is slowly falling out of favour with its population, Saudi Arabia is quite effective at perpetuating its theocracy thanks to its wealth and international relationships. It's not just that Saudi Arabia does some bad stuff. It does the same bad stuff as Iran -- and worse -- yet we (and in this case I mean us, Germany, in particular) sell weapons and military equipment to the Saudis and buy their oil while sanctioning Iran. I'm an atheist, so I'm strictly opposed to any form of religious influence on politics (be it Muslim, Christian or Jewish). But you have to acknowledge that Iran is taking a turn towards the better while Saudi Arabia sits comfortably in a Bronze Age form of government and legal system (with full access to the Post-Space Age technology we are selling them).
- adventured 12y ago
  No, if you support a terrorist organization, then you support terrorists. I said nothing about Islam. Supporting terrorists has nothing to do with Islam. Iran supporting Hezbollah has to do with Iran supporting terrorists. I never said Saudi or Iran were worse. That has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. This isn't an argument over what the worst country on earth is. My point was: Iran is an oppressive theocracy that directly finances terrorism. They are, very blatantly. And if Saudi is worse, that does not mean Iran isn't still an oppressive theocracy.
  - pluma 12y ago
    I'm not really disagreeing then, I'm just failing to see your point. Iran is an oppressive theocracy. Saudi Arabia is an oppressive theocracy. Both of them support people/groups we would call terrorists. The only regard in which Iran is somehow worse than Saudi Arabia is that they have a more outspoken hate of Israel while the Saudis are clever enough to avoid speaking too badly about a country in their region that is a close ally to the countries they're so good at doing business with. One country being worse than another doesn't make the other country any better. I'm not saying Iran is moderate. It's just a heck of a lot more moderate (in practice) than Saudi Arabia, a country that televises PSAs that women shouldn't drive and that you better don't skip on any of your prayers throughout the day because God will literally kill you if you do that.
acqq 12y ago
Just two details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_a... "The hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with al-Qaeda, and 15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia." http://www.economist.com/news/international/21640325-international-outrage-halts-saudi-punishmentbut-how-long-victim-hypocrites http://www.economist.com/news/international/21640325-interna... "THE Middle East is a black spot for free speech. Its countries come near the bottom in rankings of press freedom, and most criminalise blasphemy and apostasy (renouncing Islam). But even by such dismal standards, Saudi Arabia stands out. Penalties for transgressing its religious and political strictures, even in word, include hefty fines and jail sentences, beatings and beheadings. Human Rights Watch, a monitoring group, notes a surge in executions since August. By some counts at least ten people have been put to death so far this year."
- adventured 12y ago
  You post that like I wouldn't know about the Saudi hijackers. What does that have to do with Iran? I even attempted to put a stop to such replies at the bottom of my post. Because Saudi does X, that does not relieve Iran from what they do, or the religious based oppression they enslave their people under.
  - acqq 12y ago
    I see you quote that Iranian government is against Israel, that is indisputable. pluma started the subject of Saudis being even worse than Iran but covered completely differently by the US media, which I think is also indisputable. Saudis beatings and beheadings news are easy to find and they are the very clear examples of religious oppression they enslave their people under. Can you quote the same acts of Iranians to their people?
    - adventured 12y ago
      When did I say anything about Saudi being worse or better than Iran? When did I deny anything that Saudi does? You're failing on logical separation of discussion. Because I say X, does not mean I agree with or deny or support Z. I've even tried to specifically note this, so that I wouldn't get endless replies about how Saudi Arabia is worse than Iran.
pekk 12y ago
Of course it's no real controversy that the Islamic Republic is radical, it is a Revolution which always had radical aims and its power has always been founded on violence. Bearing in mind that Hezbollah is a terrorist group according to the US State Department because it is engaged in military conflict with Israel, the Islamic Republic has many reasons to maintain its patronage of Hezbollah, most of which relate to Hezbollah's ability to make war whether or not we consider that terrorist. Iranian national interest is not to try to cozy up to the US or Israel. Iranians legitimately fear reprises of the traumatic Iran-Iraq war. They have defense interests in the region. The US is not offering to defend Iran. The US can't defend anyone in the region even if it wanted to - look at what happened to poor Georgia and now Ukraine, which are not even majority Muslim countries. So we are asking Iran to cut off Hezbollah, but not replace it - there are no established alternatives. Who can offer them reliable allegiance, the bones of PLO? The political class needs to maintain popular focus on external enemies to maintain the internal cohesion of Iran itself in spite of relatively brutal restrictions enforced with secret police and gulags. They need to feed their religious base, after all their whole legitimacy is based on religion. They also need concessions to Iranian nationalists who like to see Iran being a regional power. It also buys a certain amount of goodwill in the Ummah to make noise about helping Palestine fight Israel. When the majority of the Ummah is Sunni and a very large and important segment is Arab, that kind of goodwill is a little harder to buy for a Shiite theocracy dominated by ethnic Persians. Anyway, Iran is so entrenched in its proxy war with Israel that it can't really back out. So it needs Hezbollah. If you are worried for Israel and you want Iran's threat to Israel to end, then Israel has to make good with Palestine with significant concessions, and then the Islamic Republic's position will be correspondingly eroded. Unfortunately it looks like Israel's political class has become dominated by an intransigent ultranationalist wing which decided to intentionally and permanently cut off any possible basis for conciliation by fragmenting any possible territory into a completely indivisible foam, which ultimately just feeds the Islamic Republic.