Comment by kaveh_h | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kaveh_h | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

And you think it’s just of US to sell weapons to a authoritarian murderous regime like SA? Previously Saddam in Iraq? And also the Afghan fundamentalists during Russian and Afghanistan war? Eventually US went to war with both Iraq and Afghanistan with the same leadership they supported earlier.

The Shia militias your talking about is no better nor worse than the kind of people both US and SA and other gulf countries have supported in the region. You think ISIS could have existed without certain external help in the ME?

The question is not if Iran is bad they clearly are, but they are not worse than the rest of the regional powers also not worse compared to US given it’s track record in both supporting totalitarian leaders and fundamentalists.

My understanding is that the topic of this subthread is whether there is evidence to support the idea that Iran has done something for which sanctions are appropriate. I think there is sufficient evidence of that.

If you want to debate whether the U.S. should sell arms to Saudi Arabia, I think that is a different topic.

I think the debate is whether you think that Iran has done something that warrants the sanctions and if yes, whether you think sanctions should also be imposed on Saudi Arabia, who has unquestionably done much worse, or is this not an objective standard that the U.S. follows and only select 'rouge' states fall under them, whereas other rouge states do not, as long as they maintain sufficient trading relationships?

Sure it’s a different story. Because it explains everything. How come one country is sanctioned while the other is treated like good friends. This is not a new trend with Yemen and Khashoggi affair either. Saudi Arabia has spread it’s ideology both to Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Asia and also in parts of Africa. That ideology is behind groups such as Al-quaida, Al-shahab, ISIS, Taliban who knows who else. This started in the 80s. Yet because they were allied with US they were treated like friends. Reagan even took a couple of pictures with some of them.

But history and context does not suit a soldier who is only looking at the “facts” given by his superior.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com