Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

I'm completely baffled by the US stance towards Iran. I understand they want to eliminate Israel, but given that they suffered US meddling of a democratic election, capitulated to the reduction of their nuclear program and inspections, and otherwise cooperative with US demands, what is the reason for continued sanctions? Is it due to the sheer inertia of legacy policies, the Israeli lobby?

I can understand if it's the sheer inertia of legacy policies, since we managed to sanction Cuba for no good reason. The people that end up getting hurt from these policies set by average people thousands of miles away are just average citizens.

View on HN

For some reason, you didn't mention all of the terrorist activities Iran engages in. Or hundreds of US soldiers killed by Iran. Learning about them might reduce your level of bafflement.

> Or hundreds of US soldiers killed by Iran.

The USA sends military forces half way around the globe to interfere in Iran's backyard and then accuses Iran of being belligerent?

Kinda ironic that "terrorism" is so a big deal regarding Iran when there is no problem the impact a country like Saudi Arabia has. I'm not going to beat that dead horse that a lot of 9/11 terrorist were SA. But if you would follow the money of most European Mosques where they preach extremism (and produce terrorists) you will see the money seems to come from one country and here is a hint...it's not Iran. And that is still going one today.

Then again according to Trump Iran also is a big supporter of Al Qaeda where it doesn't make any ideological sense (shia versus...) only if you take the all the muslims/brown people are the same approach.

Don't get me wrong Iran don't have nice leaders but this whole situation really stinks and does nothing to improve the security of us all.

Can you provide sources? I'm going off of reports like the View News report on Iran (HBO episode). They just showed normal teenagers who had to make skateboards out of iron because they couldn't buy any real skateboards.

Seeing as how there was Iran deal on the table that Obama pushed for, then that means reducing/removing sanctions is not as crazy as you are proposing.

The Iranian people are ok. It's their present government that leaves something to be desired. There's a long and messy history partly kicked off by us Brits and the CIA overthrowing their democratic government to grab their oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

I am not surprised to hear HBO take on Iran. Skateboards, pretty damning stuff.

But it's not just skateboards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Iran#Capital_pu...

I am aware that they probably fund terrorism as part of their Death to America stance. But the continued US sanctions are not going to help if we refuse to reward them for correct behavior. They agree to deal, inspections, winding down nuclear facilities, and we respond with erratic behavior. I wouldn’t be suprised now they will increase their support of enemies of the US since we are forcing them to be our enemy. And the US has never imposed sanctions on countries with poor LGBT rights (having itself only recently accepted LGBT people). We impose sanctions to get what we want, not protect human rights. We deposed their democratically elected leaders for less than noble reasons.

Yeah, Iran probably (but who can say for sure) funds terrorism with that whole Death to America thing. And gay marriage was only legal in the US in 2013 or whenever. So not much difference between that and hanging people. Putting it that way, I can see your bafflement.

I think if you believe the US is sanctioning Iran because of their gay rights record then that would be pretty naive. It's all about power and politics. We didn't depose their democratically elected leaders for their benefit, that's for sure.

Iran is sitting on enormous oil reserves, development of which could seriously depress the prices.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com