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Comment by she_moves_on | Hacker News Reader

One frustrating thing that the author gets wrong is labelling Iran the "Gray Daesh."

Iran has geopolitical conflict with the West, but it's a false equivalent of Saudi Arabia. Iran is a theocracy trying to control a population that growingly wants to be secular. Women in Iran go to university at higher rates than men, can drive, hold office, and vote. Life in Iran for a women is not perfect but is heaven compared to Saudi Arabia.

Iranian sponsored militias like hezbollah are in geopolitical conflicts as Iran wants more regional influence. They want regional islam. They are not trying to establish a global Shiite islamic state.

Like most things it comes down to money and power. Saudi plays ball with America economic hegemony and Iran does not. So rather than allying with the more moderate/educated nation with huge potential to be progressive, we ally with the one that is best for big business and willing to cede military control of the region to us.

The Iranian theocracy is fucked, don't get me wrong. But we really have our priorities in a mess.

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As Iranian (I am commenting from Tehran) I completely approve your point of view.I even explained in long comment in this post(you can find it in bottom).Iranian regime nightmare is liberal people( because they are the most effective opposition to current regime, all of other opposition's dismantled by regime very easily they don't even exist in society).

you know why? Because they are only threat to nature of this unbeatable regime(which have money manpower and religion).but west politicians keep ignoring this fact.Iran society is way ahead of its regime.Maybe far better than turkey in term of progressiveness And regime knows perfectly. Not Isis.not USA.not Israel.non of them is serious threat for them in long term.but a huge young population with secular believes is THE most threat for regime nature.people who use internet and spend time behind porn sites and don't give fuck about Islam is the most threat (and lose) for Iran regime.

You want change middle east . change their fucking -stupid- culture with internet, with porn.

Well, porn usually doesn't help much. How about proper education and teaching people to respect women and minorities?

Of course , I am using porn as notion, because it is such red line in Iran's(or broadly in Islamic) culture. It is the most - and first - effective attack to the stupid Islamic culture.Of course science is the best alternative. I just want show people the hardware -military,sanction, etc- is not answer . the best answer is software -culture,education,etc-.

Western countries are not interested in investing in Middle Eastern countries to achieve long term goals.

We all get free or almost free or cheap, decent education in Iran, how about you? how much university debt do you have?

no gift is ever free. that is the problem.

I fail to see the downside of a free education. The questions you might ask is what it is exactly that is being taught but in general a free education is a good thing.

"Since the act of accepting a gift can create a sense of unfulfilled obligation on the part of the receiver, gifts are sometimes refused, depending on the situation."

This notion from an etiquette guide to foreign culture I think is relevant.

No, this one does not apply for free gift of education, but it applies to any gift that have some sort of monetary value, because when you educate people you enlighten them and give them ability of understanding true value of what they are receiving too. so you are wrong again. you give a man fish you feed him for a day ( your case ), you teach him fishing, you feed him for life ( education case ).

you're incredibly overconfident. I'll leave it at that. good luck.

confidence comes from ability to recognize the facts from BS and fallacy.

that is freemium (looks free but is not), you are mixing it with genuine gift my dear.

Well I went to a paid university in Iran, the quality of education wasn't good either. Almost 1% of people get that "free" education you're talking about.

you went to paid university because you were not smart enough to get into free one, I went to free one, AmirKabir University of Technology and studied computer science for free. I like to know where did you get your 1% from?

Maybe you're right and I'm not smart enough. But 1% of 1.7 million students who went Konkoor the year I went to is still a lot more than capacity of all universities in Iran. So your statement is incorrect. We didn't "all" get free education

you even cannot read properly,no wonder you didn't get accepted in Concour (Concour is a french word, you can learn this one too), I wrote: "we all get free or almost free or very cheap", read again so you learn to read correctly and you can comment again. we were 5 kids in family and my father had very modest income, me and my brother went to free university and 3 of my sisters went to Azad university and my father was able to pay for tuition with his modest income however it was hard for him to pay sometimes, but he was able to pay. and we didn't end up with mountains of debt.

1. It's not decent education.

2. It's the same here in the U.S. With all the nagging cost of education is not that high. I'm paying for my wife college.

3. You are attacking me for no reason. Once you called me dumb. But you know how the entry exam works, it is certainly not the best system for pickup up the most talented people. I'm not saying I'm talented or anything but your basis of judgment is wrong

I will leave at here, I didn't call you dumb, you just may be didn't think enough, I looked at your submissions, it seems you are smart enough and had decent education ( i guess in iran ) :)

Nope, as I said Azad university sucks balls. I didn't finish school there. I came to the U.S., got some real education and started working for a company that you use it's products everyday. But it's not about me. I might be the dumbest person on planet

Back to your original point in which you suggested we have decent education for cheap of free in Iran. I still disagree with you. There is only a handful of schools (Sharif and maybe Tehran) with decent teachers and some decade old equipments, other than that most of schools in Iran are inefficient and I consider them a waste of time. Azad university is more like a religious school than an art and science college. So no, we don't have "free or cheap" "decent education" "for everyone". If we had we wouldn't have such terrible society. You went to a "decent" school and living in Canada. You're considered "elite" or counted in brain drain stats! Yet, you are attacking people on internet for no reason. That's why I'm saying we have a terrible society.

I didn't attack anyone, I only said you were not possibly smart enough to pass the entrance exam, I didn't pass it either on first attempt, I managed to get into decent school on second try. Azad wasn't very good university at first it was kinda like a high school at the beginning ( my high school use to be Azad branch in after hours !!!) , I have seen it grown since its inception, now is good enough on main branches in big cities, in terms of equipments even with sanctions we had good stuff, for sure not as Ivy league universities in US, but good. yes I am living in Canada, I also lived in 4 other countries and I am still proud of whatever my country provided for me, with education that I had in Iran, and my hard work today I work for one of top 3 software makers in world.I am by no means elite but may be in brain drain stats ;). since you are in US go to any decent US university's engineering department and see how many Iranian educated boys and girls study there, and how many of them actually finished their BS or MSc in Iran. here in Canada/Quebec in one of the universities 70% of Phd students are Iranian (official stat by university itself). they must have had decent education to get accepted for continuing higher education, i guess, what do you think?. for you information my wife also study Phd in McGill, she finished her Msc and BS in Iran. education in Iran is way more decent than many other countries and is cheap or free. today they don't have a big competition to get into universities as there many more seats available.we don't have terrible society we only have terrible individuals which could possibly include myself too. so let's fix ourselves first.

On HN, telling someone that they can't read properly or that they weren't smart enough to pass an exam do count as personal attacks. We ban accounts for doing this, so please don't do this again.

To be a good contributor to this site it's best to make sure you've read the following:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

I said he cannot read, because he didn't read, I will say it as long as someone reads my writings partially and not complete.I said he was not possibly smart enough as Iran's free university entrance exam was to the most degree IQ test ( at least in my days ) I failed myself for first time. you can go ahead and ban my account now.

You posted "you even cannot read properly" in a comment upthread.

We don't want to ban you! Your comments indicate a perspective that doesn't often show up here. Diverse perspectives are good for HN. But to participate effectively, you need to learn and follow the local conventions, and also understand that HN has rules, the foremost of which is civility.

I don't think you were intentionally uncivil. I do think you were unintentionally uncivil. That's nowhere near as bad, but still needs correcting.

did you see "Properly"? please re-read what I wrote and you quoted, otherwise I "might" think you unintentionally unable to read what I wrote, or unintentionally don't like to understand what I wrote, I don't like sweet talks, I prefer to be concise and direct. you don't know me, so you cannot judge my civility neither I can do yours. and you are not in a position of correcting me or anyone here, but you can express your opinion on someone's opinion and you are just a moderator (I guess), you seems like US government which is trying to "Correct" people who don't know ( by using force ) and have no intention of knowing them, you just use your "Civil Words" and threat of banning rather than trying to understand what I said. ( did I attack you too? I hope not, don't take it personally everyone needs a reminder sometimes, it could be me or you), feel free to ban me if my opinion hurts your level of civility. I have no intention of correcting you or anyone, peoples are uncorrectable until they realize (by education may be or facing the truth/consequences of their actions) themselves that they were wrong, then they might overcome their ignorance and mistakes, and that is very small possibility specially these days. :)

I feel like we may be running up against some language and cultural barriers here, and am happy to discuss further at hn@ycombinator.com if it would help clear things up. But you do have to follow the rules, like everyone else, when posting to HN.

good, next time before jumping in and using your gun (banning), try to read (re-read) and understand first as English is not universal mother tongue of everyone (including myself), and I generally follow the rules as they are necessary.

FYI, I didn't go to school in Canada, only in Iran.

Now that there are negative experiences on the consequences of overthrowing the regime in Iraq, Libya, Syria, it might unfortunately take a long time before the West will have courage to support a regime change in Iran.

Why would the West have to support such a change? It can only happen from within, just like that last time that Iran decided on Regime Change and showed they were perfectly capable of getting rid of their leader of the day (the Shah). Persia ceased to exist and Iran was born, much against the wish of the West and without any of its support (rather the opposite). I'm pretty sure that Iran can manage the next transition just fine. Though it may be a while. If we want to expand IS territory then by all means, let's mess in Irans internal affairs.

From the perspective of a Western government, Iran's international relations are the problem.[1] The fact that Iran's society is relatively advanced does little to console the families of the 1100 American soldiers killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq; nor does it console the families of the hundreds (if not thousands) of Israeli civilians killed by (Iranian government supported) Hamas. State support for the Assad regime isn't helping the Iranian government's international reputation either.[2]

If you want to change the West's attitude towards Iran, a good first step would be to push for the release of Jason Rezaian, and the end of state support for terrorism.[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_involvement_in_the_Syr...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/stories-jason-rezaian/

I think the US/Iran resentment goes back a bit further, roughly to the time that Iran took a whole pile of US hostages that were held for more than a year.

That's not the sort of thing that is easily forgotten and it is one of the cornerstones of West/Islam conflict.

After that it was mostly a downward spiral, with some recent relaxation on both sides of the line.

That's certainly a good point, but they can do little to change their history, other than plead for forgiveness, which the state is unlikely to do, as that is now part of their origin myth.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_myth

That was a while after we deposed their democratically elected leader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

Yes, I'm aware of that. But for the US that was not a reason to hate Iran (then Persia). (Of course it may not have helped the other side of the balance)

> I think the US/Iran resentment goes back a bit further, roughly to the time that Iran took a whole pile of US hostages that were held for more than a year.

But that didn't happen in a vacuum either. The U.S. engineered or facilitated the overthrow of a mostly democratic Iranian leader in 1953, and put in his place a mini-dynasty of dictators who brutally oppresssed Iranians, with U.S. support, until that day in 1979. I'm not saying the Iranians should have taken those innocent Americans hostage but they didn't pick the American embassy and take hostages in a random act of violence.

... and I'm sure the 1953 coup didn't happen in a vacuum either.

I said 'US/Iran' resentment. The 'Iran/US' resentment dates back even further, and if you trace it all to its roots you end somewhere in the 1700's or so, but then it was still (mostly) the UK and not the US.

> I said 'US/Iran' resentment

If you mean "US/Iran resentment" means "US resentment of Iran but not Iranian resentment of the US", I now understand what you intended. Unfortunately, your syntax is undocumented and not defined in the language standard. :)

Also, the overthrow of Mossadegh was fundamentally about communism. Eisenhower featured that Mossadegh's policies would lead Iran towards communism. (The British were the ones who got that ball rolling; they wanted to depose Mossadegh for other reasons, mostly related to oil, but were not in a position to do anything with him.)

The US was also big time friend of the previous guy...

They all but installed him.

Or even further back to the time when CIA destroyed the democracy in Iran, and hasn't stopped interfering since ...

I approve your point , but you are not going to beat a regime which has effective - and clever - regional - and domestic - policy with a bunch of sanction. Iran and its proxies are fighting against USA.That is truth. But the question is how we can solve Iran -regime- problem? What is the solution ?

I personally believe there is no answer to this question other than Iran's own population.

You cannot believe me , but I can see with my own eye. Every time USA or international community interfere in something all people are suspicious and whole community turn to regime supporters (you may know , being against foreign powers in middle east is one of the effective way to stay in power , and Iran's supreme leader does this in extremely effective way).

If you want to fight you can only throw this regime with only academia and liberal people through a push for reform. There is no other alternative.They cleverly managed to stop and destroy every other opposition in country.Even parties which was more than 100 years old.

I will guarantee you other way of fighting against this regime is not effective and will not effective.You want military invasion ? hell no , they will harm your military very badly , they will turn Iran worse than Vietnam and Germany in second WW.Even after changing regime they will remain active force like Al-Quada , suicidal force in society, which can change or throw government very easily.

But the increasing liberal force in Iran want reform more than ever , they pushing even badly. I am not saying it is going to be successful.No , not yet, but I am saying it can be if west does not provoke people against reform and provide platform for free information flow (which is regime nightmare)

I'll bet way more than 1100 Iranian soldiers were killed by American proxies, umm I mean, allies in Iraq back when Hussein was a friend of America. So, call it even?

I think those are rationalizations for the larger reason: The U.S. and the West are the status quo powers; that is, we support the status quo power structure in the Mideast, with Sunnis and Saudi Arabia in particular dominating the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula. Iran is challenging that status quo.

Speaking generally, in any such situation the challengers appear to be behaving badly because they are disruptive - they have to disrupt the status quo to bring change. In the end, neither side necessarily has a more legitimate claim to power and both would do the same in the other's shoes.

I'm also not sure either side behaves better. Remember the U.S. played a major role in overthrowing a (mostly) democratic Iranian government in the 1950s, then supported a dictator who brutally oppressed the people of Iran for decades. The U.S. supports insurgent groups in and near Iran, sabotages their infrastructure (the nuclear program), imposes crippling economic sanctions, and very likely participated in the assassination of Iranian scientists. I happen to think the actions against Iran's nuclear weapons program are necessary, and Iran's government is generally a danger to many people's lives in the Mideast, but the West can hardly complain about Iran behaving badly. (And don't forget the U.S. misleading the world and invading a neighboring Mideast country for no good reason.)

> The fact that Iran's society is relatively advanced does little to console the families of the 1100 American soldiers

US killed a lot more of the American soldiers since. You make it seems like 1000 US soldiers' concerns somehow makes huge difference in the overall geopolitics. That is just propaganda.

Many of those solders were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan invasion. Others were sent home traumatized mentally and physically.

> soldiers killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq

In general mentioning "killing by proxy" and US in the same comment is not a good idea if it is supposed to support the US position. US has killed by proxy a lot more and supported brutal regimes and dictators for many decades on almost all continents.

There's also the Israel tail wagging the dog issue. Israel hates Iran so we hate Iran. Israel loves Sunni dictatorships in Egypt and Saudi Arabia so we love Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

I don't think Israel hates Iran or Iran hates Israel. Both, regardless of their differences, behave logically.

I believe they find in each other an enemy that helps with their narrative, without the detriment of having to deal with the danger of an erratic or unreasonable enemy.

> does little to console the families of the 1100 American soldiers killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq

Hang on... the USA sent armed forces 9,500 km across the globe to unilaterally invade a country literally across the border from Iran, and you reckon it's Iran's fault they were killed?

Of course Iran was going to take advantage of the situation. It's their backyard, the USA was thrashing around aimlessly and they saw an opportunity to achieve an objective to their benefit. After all they have to live beside the self-imploding remains of Iraq, they can't just climb into C-17s and say it's over.

>1100 American soldiers killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq

And how 'bout all the Iranian soldiers killed by our friend and alley, Saddam Hussein, during the Iran-Iraq war? We didn't even get upset at Saddam for the USS Stark incident!

I always thought Iranians saw Islam as a tradition, not so much a defining aspect of their identity.

For a large and influential constituency in Iran, this is true. Iran is a very complex, multipolar environment, in contrast to the facile way it is generally presented as a monolith ruled in an absolutist way by mad mullahs or whatever. There are at least three significant camps in Iran.

Ah yes, but you fail to mention Iran's extremely aggressive agenda in the region.

The Ahwazi Arabs (Sunni, coincidentally) are stripped of nearly all basic human rights, enclosed in their own state essentially within Iran's borders [1]. Even the Shia in Saudi Arabia are treated better than how Iran handles the Ahwaz region.

Further, Iran loves fighting wars by proxy for some reason. Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guard are roaming around Syria like they own it. Hezbollah's hold on Lebanese politics is undeniable. And of course, the funding of Houthis in Yemen who hilariously failed to execute an easy coup, the result of which started a full-blown war.

The region is in turmoil, and both sides are at fault. I personally believe that the US is entirely aware of the troubled sectarian relations in the region, and is using that as a way to get cheap oil and sell arms, which is a valid strategy.

This has to stop. The only lasting solution is dialogue.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahwazi_Arabs

I don't presume that anyone on this board would make such a mistake, but thank you for sublty reminding us that Iranians are not Arabs. Such obfuscations make it difficult for us to parse the active conflicts in the region.

Tehran is quite busy dealing with threats on all sides, whilst still trying to pursue its support of Hezbollah in Lebannon.

I think lessons learned in Iraq changed the calculus for Tehran and Washington. Keeping in mind there are at least 18m Sunni muslims in Iran vulnerable to ISIS message and good number of disaffected Shia, the focus may be on stability now.

Oh, just maybe it has something to do with the extremely pacifist agenda of the US and Saudi Arabia in the region ...

> Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guard are roaming around Syria like they own it.

So you would rather have ISIS expanding in Syria? That's what the Iranians are fighting there.

Furthermore they were invited by the legitimate and UN recognized Syrian government to help fighting the Sunni extremists.

The main difference is that the government in power currently in Iran deposed the government that the US set up and wanted to have as an ally. If the Shah had remained in power in Iran, the US would likely be as close with Iran as they are with Saudi Arabia.

> the government in power currently in Iran deposed the government that the US set up

The U.S. did not 'set up' the Shah; he was the legitimate ruler of Persia. Nor did the U.S. overthrow a 'democratically-elected leader'; the Shah's legitimate government successfully defeated a coup attempt by his prime minister Mossadegh, who died peacefully under house arrest years later.

oh my god, you should get hired by FoxNews

You've been posting comments that break the Hacker News guidelines. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do that.

Temper runs high and patience is thin when it comes to questions like this, so it's understandable when people boil over—but it also breaks the rules of this site, which are there for good reason. Please don't post comments unless they are civil and substantive.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Is this sarcasm?

I'm asking because I don't see any markers indicating that it is and I get this wrong every 3rd comment or so.

If it isn't sarcasm you are somewhat mis-informed. If it is sarcasm then please ignore this comment.

As for the Shah, he was very much there with the support of the oil industry, but that doesn't make him all bad. He wanted to make Persia a modern state and in doing so upset the Mullahs which culminated in the return of banished Ayatollah Khomeini (who resided in Paris, of all places during his exile), and how that ended we probably all already know.

> As for the Shah, he was very much there with the support of the oil industry, but that doesn't make him all bad. He wanted to make Persia a modern state and in doing so upset the Mullahs

IIRC, he oppressed, imprisoned, tortured and killed people in large numbers, for decades.

Yes, he did that too. (Especially to his opponents.) The keyword is 'SAVAK'. (See comment elsewhere in this thread). The Shah was a dictator in every sense of the word, but surprisingly, he had some good sides too.

I would grateful if you could cite a source for this information, as it runs counter to all the sources I'm familiar with. A few examples are:

An Introduction to the Modern Middle East: History, Religion, Political Economy by David S. Sorenson (Page 202) http://bit.ly/1S9HrTA

The Cold War Museum http://www.coldwar.org/articles/50s/OperationAjax.asp

If the U.S. didn't overthrow Mossadegh, why did the CIA admit to doing so years later in declassified documents?

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/

Amazing how one theocracy, Saudi Arabia, is ok, but the other theocracy, Iran, is bad.

I think the major difference is that Iran is openly and directly funding/helping Hizbollah. Whereas Saudi Arabia is more of funder of extremist beliefs but no direct funding of terrorist orgs

Not really. The US shot a missile at Iranian Airliner (killing all civilians on board) and coup'd Iran's Democracy in the 1960s.

Iran held US personnel as hostages for a year and imprisons our visitors. They are also sworn enemies to US Allies like Israel.

Iran is "bad" because they are our enemy. And they see the US as "bad" because we've been their enemy in the past.

There is absolutely nothing strange about the hate-filled relationship between Iran and the US. It is simple politics and history.

> It is simple politics and history

American was at war with Japan and Germany not to long before as well. Now we are best buddies. Things can change if the money's right.

There was a fairly complete turnaround in the politics of both Germany and Japan after they lost the Second World War, in case you didn't notice. The "money's right" came as a consequence of that.

Nothing rules out Iran having such a complete turnaround. Plenty of people there remember the days of the Shah, they also remember the days of the SAVAK.

Neither of those solutions was 'all good' so at some point the people will say 'enough'. It can take a while.

> Nothing rules out Iran having such a complete turnaround.

The purpose of the Guardian Council [0] is precisely to prevent such a turnaround.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_Council

That sort of thing will be their downfall, it won't prevent much of anything other than maybe temporary.

Iran was a U.S. ally under the Shahs, whose reign lasted from the coup we supported or engineered (against their mostly democratic government) in 1953 until the revolution in 1979. Many/most 9/11 perpetrators, including Osama Bin Laden, came from Saudi Arabia; there is plenty of reason for the U.S. to hate them.

All countries (or other groups) can find reasons to hate or love each other. Look at France and Germany, close allies now but plenty of opportunity for hate. All it takes is an effective political leader to manipulate the public in whatever way suits them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA

Iran was a U.S. ally under the Shahs, whose reign lasted from the coup we supported or engineered (against their mostly democratic governemnt) in 1953 until the revolution in 1979.

The beginning of Mohammad Reza's reign was in 1941 and had nothing to do with the US. The coup (by both the US and UK) was about reversing the nationalization of Iran's oil industry, not about installing Mohammad Reza as king. Britain and the Soviet Union did that in WWII.

Whatever the mechanics the US and UK effectively removed Prime Minister Mosaddegh from power and gave it to, and supported the Shah (Reza). Is that not correct?

Yes, it is correct. Although, as with any CIA destabilisation and coup operation, a certain layer of plausible deniability was a key strategic consideration.

Singapore is one republic, and Sweden is another. They could hardly be more different. Not all {governments-of-one-type} are the same.

Sweden is constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy - more like the UK than Singapore.

> Women in Iran go to university at higher rates than men, can drive, hold office, and vote. Life in Iran for a women is not perfect but is heaven compared to Saudi Arabia

I have been following the politics/culture of the region for a while. I totally agree. Two examples of women, of Iranian origin, being in the news in the recent past for the best reasons.

Maryam Mirzakhani[1], who won the fields medal in Math last year. Remember reading an article, where she spoke about the Math culture at her home and College in Iran.

Another one is this US Entrepneur Anousheh Ansari[2], who also went to the ISS, and identifies herself as a dual national.

I would love to know of any examples of women in Arab (or nearby countries) having made similar achievement. Sadly, I suspect, the culture does not allow it.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Mirzakhani

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anousheh_Ansari

I hope that, between the nuclear treaty and Daesh providing a common foe, we can start making more political inroads between western powers and Iran... maybe even Lebanon, too (the Beirut bombings are fresh in memory).

The hard part will, of course, be Israel's influence on western politics, since the situation is worsening there with the recent spate of stabbings and the new walls going up to protect settlements in the west bank.

With Iran and Lebanon's ties to Hezbollah, Israel will (quite reasonably, all things considered) react badly to inroads made between these countries and Israel's allies.

Nitpick: they are not "growingly" wanting ... They are fucking oppressed!!

Source: four generations in the state department. With a majority of my father's familiar peers living in Tehran in the late 60s, fluent in Farsi...

Iranians are amazing people. Fuck that, people are amazing people... Some People are horrid humans.

I have no mercy for said horrid humans...

What people lack is a true measure of what makes a sound or terrible human in an objective way...

I believe the colors for the author denote only the degree of geopolitical conflict

Author got paid to paint Saudi's black ( they are certainly blackish in terms of things that they do [I am not racist] with US approval) and Iran as Gray (not very true, Iran is way more whiter than US, EU and KSA), such a moron. at the end every country is a different shade of Gray.

> Iran is way more whiter than US, EU and KSA

What is your reasoning behind this claim?

Yes I agree, the Iranians are on a different level regarding education, academia and culture.

They will eventually transform into a relatively free society if we don't interfere.

We don't need your freedom, we are free, you are slave of your credit card company and bank, mind your own business. -- An Iranian

I didn't say that you will want the same freedom or culture that we have.

I just comment on the fact that there is obviously a conflict between the well educated masses in Iran and the strict religious laws.

Can't just imagine your society will still be cutting of hands of thieves and hanging homosexuals publicly in 50 years.

Also I would appreciate it if you wouldn't insult me. -- A non-nationalist guy

That's an interesting point you raise there. People in Western societies see themselves as 'at the pinnacle of civilization' but there is plenty that other countries have, even if their governments are not arrived at through the same mechanisms that we have and by our yardstick are 'less free' whereas we are by their yardstick 'less free'.

As for being a slave to credit card companies and banks: that's optional where I live.

I think most westerners think of freedom as the ability to do what you want when you want. This means freedom of speech, freedom to travel, freedom of censorship, freedom of dress codes.

I'm not claiming other nations are completely free, they're not. But Iran is free? Not even close.

Come visit Iran and then we can talk who has freedom and who don't. Is easy and not accurate if you judge things that you never saw in your life.

the soviets tried that approach and it didn't work out well for them.

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