Originally posted by CuteAngel
How could you even think that the Shah was bad for Iran??? Iran was at its peak at the time of the Shah.
You can't be serious. The Shah fit every definition of a dictator. He was an illegitimate ruler who refused to allow dissent, and who ruled the
country solely for his own benefit. He can best be compared to Saddam Hussein. Why do you think the revolution in Iran erupted in the first place?
The majority of Iranians were fed up with the Shah and with the fact that he was serving the interests of Western corporations more than the interests
of Iranian people.
And how do you define the "peak" that you claim Iran has reached under him? What exactly makes you think that the standard of life for Iranian
people was any better than it is now? See - many Westerners have this belief that Iran today is an empoverished and dilapidated nation. Why?
Because many Westerners have never been to Iran and refuse to learn more about life in that country. Fact is, that besides the authoritarian
government and some religious hardliners, Iran is not such a terrible place.
The leadership that replaced the Shah was far from ideal of course, and is in many ways as bad as he was - I have never been a fan of it either. But
to claim that the Shah was a good leader for Iranian is completely absurd. The fact that the Shah was replaced by other dictators and not be a
democratic government - can in part be blamed on the US. The US stood firmly behind the Shah (for business interests) and refused to acknowledge the
cause of the revolution. A such the people who climbed to leadership roles in Iran were hardliners who could hold their line against the US.
If the US understood the interests of the majority of Iranians, it might have helped to gradually substitute the Shah for an elected government and
start transition to democracy.
Originally posted by CuteAngel
To Maloy -
You think that only the NWO or the US have their agenda, think again...those religious fanatics who rule certain regions of the ME have a crazy agenda
of their own which I'm sure many dont appreciate.
The extremists that run rampant throughout the Middle East now are also in a way a creation of the Western World and the Cold War. They did not
appear in a vacuum - a combination of circumstances led to their rise. The Western world since the imperial times has thoroughly exploited the Middle
East (and Latin America, and Africa, and Asia). This exploitation did not end with the end of the imperial era however - mostly because the West was
now interested in oil. Then came the Cold War, where both Russia and US could be blamed for sparking new conflicts in the Middle East.
Finally, after the Cold War, Russia bowed out for the most part, meanwhile the US used the opportunity to actually increase its involvement in the
Middle East. Over the past 20 years, the ME became US's main playground. This continued exploitation and involvement of Western powers to gain
access to oil, is what gave rise to the religious extremism and the violent idealogies in the region.
I am in now way trying to defend the extremist nutjobs or their agenda. I oppose all forms of religious extemism and Islamization. However one needs
to understand the context of the problems that exist in Middle East today. If we don't understand where our enemy came from - we can't be expected
to effectively deal with it. And what we must understand is that US (and in some degree Russia) are the ones who caused the Middle East to spiral
into the mess it is now.
Merely fighting the extremists will not solve the problem. They have the strength of ever rising numbers, and they don't have to fight according to
any rules or conventions. The best way to start solving the problem, is to adjust our actions that gave rise to the problem to begin with. Only then
will the extremists lose the factor that they thrive on. Of course adjusting our actions will be very hard to do, especially for the US, considering
the militaristic momentum that Pentagon has and the oil that still flows in the ME.
Originally posted by CuteAngel
Or should we go back to the times of Russia in Afghanistan or with Chechnya???.
Oh I understand perfectly well that Russia was pretty much fighting the same nutjobs that the US is now fighting. Except when Russia was fighting in
the Afghanistan the US was only to happy to help out the mujahedeen in every way possible. Russia, while opposing the Iraq war, is in no way
assisting either the Iraqi insurgency or the Afghan Taliban.
Moreover, in Chechnya the extremists from the Middle East branched out and tried to introduce their idealogy within Russia's territory - where it did
not exist before. In Iraq however, the US dived right into the hornets' nest, thereby creating even more problems than it had to begin with. I
don't even want to speculate what would happen if Iran is attacked.