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Comment by travmatt | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, Iran is the largest exporter of religiously inspired terrorism in the world, bar none. No other country has a deep institutional commitment to cultivating and supplying terrorism that can match Iran.

Edit: I'd encourage all the downvotes butt hurt by this truth to learn a little more about the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Quuds forces. No other country has a special forces dedicated to cultivating, training and supply in terrorists worldwide (groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are only two examples out of many). We're not talking a one-off phenomena, rather a multi-decade program that has split the world into sectors and has dedicated special forces in each area. This is why you have IRG trying to cultivate Islamic extremism in Venezuela, and bombings of Jewish community centers in Argentina. It's literally not a contest; Iran has been the most skilled and successful sponsor of religious terrorism in the world.

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That's a bit glib; much like the USA there are a wide variety of opinions and what the conservative-leaning government chooses to do doesn't necessarily align with what the people want.

In Iran that is due to the Ayatollah Khomeini and his crew. (Nominally he isn't a dictator, in theory he is, in reality there are politics and practical considerations.)

In the USA, it is due to Republican gerrymandering (total votes cast for Senate and House slightly favor Democrats, but they don't hold majorities in either house. Same for state legislatures - half of the republican controlled states had majority votes for Democrats).

I was responding to the notion that the US doesn't like Iran, I was hoping to elucidate some reasons as to why.

That's extremely hard to believe given that 9/11 was most likely paid for by official Saudi money and that it is well known that they have exported tons of people to Syria and Isis

I disagree with the supposition 9/11 was proven to be a state sponsored attack, showing that individuals inside the Saudi government funneled money to terrorism isn't equivalent to saying that Saudi government planned the attack.

You're ignoring the main thrust of my argument, that the Iranian government is dominated by religious extremists who sincerely believe it is their religious duty to spread their theocratic revolution across the world.

To this end the Iranian government has been closely involved in cultivating religious terrorism across the world for decades. You say that people expelled from Saudi Arabia end up in IS, this claim pales in comparison to the training, logistical support and technical expertise Iran directs to groups it helped create like Hamas and hezbollah. When american soldiers are killed by an IED in Iraq, it is most likely Iranian special forces that taught those terrorists how to make the IED, supplied the materials for it, and work closely with said groups to track their lethality and suggest improvements. They've literally dedicated engineers to inventing new IEDs to help penetrate American personnel carriers and kill more American troops.

Again, the difference here is everything I just said is the Iranian government formally coordinating with terrorists across the world in order to improve their lethality, not some rogue faction.

> the Iranian government is dominated by religious extremists who sincerely believe it is their religious duty to spread their theocratic revolution across the world.

The same is true of the USA. Whether you agree with them or not is highly dependent on whether you stand to be a beneficiary of the spoils of their wars, or not.

And, btw, the CIA has exported far, far more terror than the IRG ever has.

I personally find the subject-changing 'what-aboutism'of Chomsky-ists tiring and repitive, but I'll bite.

Iran is currently the largest exporter of religiously inspired extremism, bar none. They are not engaged in short-term realpolitik that installs favorable governments in previously unfavorable countries. The IRG and Quds forces are true believers who see it as their duty to cultivate religious extremism across the world, and have been practicing their trade for the past several _decades_. There is no other country in the world that has been as deeply committed at all levels of government to fomenting sectarian violence throughout the world for nearly as long, and this is why Iran has such a powerful sphere of influence. These groups see the success of clients like Hamas and Hezbollah as their crowning achievements, and have been actively cultivating similar groups for the past several decades.

Again, the indisputable fact that I keep harping on is that Iran is the largest exporter of religiously inspired violence, bar none.

If the same was true of Saudi Arabia there is no doubt western liberals would have no problem publicly flagellating themselves, but since America is currently hostile towards Iran there are inevitably 'what-abouters' who will pop up and defend the propagation of violent interpretations of Shia ideology.

If you would like to contradict this fact, you could probably start by naming the US forces that Christian theology using torture, bombings, and creation of fundamentalist Christian terror groups. Until then, Iran is the largest exporter of religiously inspired violence, bar none.

>There is no other country in the world that has been as deeply committed at all levels of government to fomenting sectarian violence throughout the world for nearly as long

The USA is just as guilty of this as any other nation. You're just not as willing to see it, since it doesn't fit your anti-Islam, pro-Christian narrative.

I don't even see how an "anti-Islam, pro-Christian" bias justifies the mistake here; the US government is, historically pretty high on the list of nations fomenting specifically Islamic sectarian violence.

The motivation for doing so may be geopolitical rather than religious on the part of decisionmakers, but then, that's hardly unique among nations fomenting sectarian violence, Islamic or otherwise.

It is far more religiously-motivated than you seem to care to admit. There are very, very few atheists in Congress calling for the bombing of Iran, and far, far more Christians who seem to be utterly okay with demolishing the Middle East in order to bring about Armageddon. Is that not clear to you, at this point?

All I'm saying is a bias against Islam in considering sectarian violence and its sources shouldn't be sufficient to blind oneself to the US role in fomenting sectarian violence, given that the US role has been particularly prominent in directly fomenting Islamic sectarian violence, both directly and through proxies.

> There are very, very few atheists in Congress calling for the bombing of Iran,

There are very, very few open atheists in Congress, whether or not they are calling for the bombing of Iran.

The last I checked I was an atheist, so I'm not sure how I'm pushing a Christian narrative. Furthermore, you mean my anti-Shia narrative, since nothing I've indicated so far has anything to do with Sunni's, seeing as Iran is a Shia nation. If anything, my claims lend credence to Sunni victimhood, but while I am very sympathetic to the Sunnis caught between ISIL on one side and scared of a Shia government in the other, I think Sunni Wahhabism has much to answer for.

But the difference in current geopolitics is that KSA is more fearful of, and has more to lose from ISIL than any other middle eastern country while Iran greatly benefits from the spread of their religious extremism. ISIL would greatly like to supplant KSA as the keeper of Mecca, Medina, and the Qabaa, while extremist Shia groups look to the Ayatollah as their spiritual leader. Can you see the distinction there?

Furthermore, I think your assertions overstate the actual history. Nixons alliance with the Saudis didn't ease any fears of sectarianism, but again the Saudi theocratic rentier government has been trying to tamp down on extremism since their legitimacy was threatened in 1979. The deposing of the Shah wasn't intended to stoke religious extremism, but it did and that is our legacy. The Neocons flirted with fomenting sectarian violence against the USSR in supporting the mujahideen, especially with logistical support and surface-to-air missiles. The Bush administration helped Iran inadvertently through beaurucratic incompetence and replacing a secular leader with a Shia dominated government who informally looks to Iran as its ally. But you also have to acknowledge that the removal of a secular dictator in favor of a Shia government has done more to balance the scales of power in favor of the Shia and lessened the power of our Saudi (Sunni) allies. This has a net effect of leveling the playing field between the two sides - while increasing the paranoia of Sunnis, it also gives the Iranians greater leverage in the region (giving them a greater stick in which to force Saudi cooperation). The Obama administration has flirted in small scales with supporting Syrian Sunni fighters and has prolonged the conflict by refusing to negotiate with Assad. The US has played an outsized role in the Middle East and must answer for it.

But again, these pale in comparison to the level of _sustained_ investment the Iranian government has made over the past 30+ years. We're not talking about a series of one-off realpolitik maneuvers. Iran is universally recognized as the most skilled operator in the region for good reason - no other country has operated in these areas for as long, or understands the culture or motivations as well. No other country is coordinating bombings in South America, and no other is trying to cultivate fundamentalist extremism there.

Lastly, I'd duspute the idea that I'm biased against Iran. I think the Persian people are probably the most amenable to western values out of any in the region, and current geopolitics notwithstanding they are probably the best hope for America to secure a long term peace in the region. I hope the moderate factions continue to achieve more successes as they have done with the nuclear accords, and there may even be a chance to end the heartbreaking tragedy in Syria by acknowledging their regional influence.

But I feel compelled to tell the truth as I see it, and to me that is acknowledging the fact that Iran is currently the worlds leading cultivator of fundamentalist terror. That doesn't mean I conflate the Ayatollah with the Persian people, that means the government of Iran is the central coordinator of Shia extremism throughout the world today, their spiritual leader. As with any government there are factions, but Irans hardliners came to power in the revolution and maintain power to this day. If moderates succeed in gaining more ground the region will be much safer overall.

Lastly, you again dodged my point. America is not cultivating Christian terror groups that look to Obama as their spiritual leader.

You are correct and this comments section (and it modding) demonstrates a fantastically shallow understanding of the Middle East that is easily addressed by airport bookstores.

Surely some of you know someone who has served in the US armed forces in the Middle East. Ask them who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are...

Not that our military aren't intelligent and capable of cultivating their own opinions, but their training and ongoing survival in the arena of combat depends on identification of people as the enemy as 'will they put a bullet in you?' rather than the 'righteousness' of their beliefs or ideology.

This is a similarly shallow response.

It's less of 'will they put a bullet in you' and more of 'Iran is the worlds greatest expert in the development and use of IEDs explicitly designed to maim and murder American forces, as in they have engineering staff embedded with insurgent groups teaching new ways of piercing American armored personnel carriers.'

That wasn't a literalism. Of course I'm aware of the use of IEDs as a contrast to the traditional firefight.

But saying that forces on the ground are the best and most objective at assessing who is in the right and the wrong in these conflicts, who is 'good' and 'bad' is simply farcical, because all of the indoctrination and (indeed necessary) biases ("identify this person/group as bad, as they are a direct threat to my life, even though their overarching motivations may be the most noble") warp their perspective.

I can understand the notion that there is enough fault to go around, and that every group is incentivized to see the fault in every other group.

But my point is that Iran is unique in that it foments religious terrorism as matter of state policy unmatched in the world. Quds forces aren't exploiting religious people for their ends, they are true believers who are actively trying to bring their Islamist revolution to the rest of the world in a systematic and patient way.

A subjective and clearheaded analysis of available facts must lead to the conclusion that it's a literal terrorist state, and I think the poster you responded to is trying to dispel the false equivalency and 'what-aboutism' so prevalent in this thread and Chomsky-ist worldviews.

> Surely some of you know someone who has served in the US armed forces in the Middle East. Ask them who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are...

I doubt they would recognize themselves as the bad guys.

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia

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