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Comment by CommanderData | Hacker News Reader

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Iranians are not "just" Arabs. They speak their own language called Farsi, which has Indo-European roots. Their culture is overall very different and goes back before Islamic conquest of Iran.

Iranians aren't Arabs at all. Most Arabs are Muslims but even then, they are a different type of Muslim. KSA and Iran go at each other all the time. The GP is really off base here.

The two nations had good relations until 1979, which is a problem for this person's world view.

I have no dog in a fight, in which you seem to really care about Iran, which is totally irrelevant, meaningless, and inconsequential to the USA or its national interests or national security; but the war machine relies on fools to fun smoothly. You do realize though that you are morally and ethically and spiritually culpable and responsible for the murder of the people that will die due to the support you provide to that end, you do realize that, right?

Maybe tell your children tonight when you get home that "I support that children like you be blown up and their families and communities be destroyed".

They may ask you "why would you support something like that, dad?" and you will only be able to say "because the colonial puppet Shah regime used to have good relations with the country founded by terrorists (the Haganah, the Irgun (ETZEL), the Stern and the LEHI) we call Israel today, you know, the ones that supported Epstein that liked raping children like you, which has manipulated me into caring more about killing other people children because I cannot think for myself or realize what awful things they have me supporting!" ... "Good night children. May there not ever be someone as awful as me in the world that decides to bomb you or your children in the future for others who have manipulated them to be awful."

  but the war machine relies on fools to fun smoothly

There is nothing new under the sun. Interwar pacifists made these arguments 100 years ago. They have some merit, but they weren't then and aren't now the full picture.

  You do realize though that you are morally and ethically and spiritually culpable and responsible for the murder

Inaction also results in death.

  colonial puppet Shah regime

There is no point arguing from here on. To my liberal brain, it just comes off as Baader–Meinhof nonsense. We are not going to agree about anything.

I'm not at all a pacifist. If you knew something about me, you would realize just how wrong that is. I am merely opposed to being used, manipulated, played, conned, scammed, f-ed, and more colorful language I will retain for myself.

And sure, inaction may or may not result in death, but inaction is not morally obligated, especially when I am not even remotely involved or it does not remotely concern me. If I am understanding your perspectively correctly, the irony is simply that you do not understand that clandestine action is actually orchestrating and instigating the supposed death you imply could be prevented through additional action you are being manipulated into taking/supporting.

Yes, there is nothing new under the sun, including the very same playbook that is being used now that was used repeatedly over the lifetime of every very young children here, let alone anyone that has reached legal maturity.

What else would you call that the Shah was thick with the CIA. et al. and his son basically lives across the river from the CIA in Potomac, MD? I am also liberal in many ways, but these are just true things. Have you ever heard of The Grayzone with Max Blumenthal and Aaron Matè. They provide a good introduction to current and recent events focused on this topic.

  If you knew something about me, you would realize just how wrong that is.

Yes, that dawned on me half-way down the comment, at which point I - maybe unfairly - put you in the radical box and gave up on communicating. I can tell we'd find each other's positions equally inhumane and naive, and the whole thing would be irritating for us both.

Man, you can’t use the word “colonial” in a serious discourse. This is not 2010, and we are not on campus.

If we stick to this colonial term we will never find an end. Arabs colonized the whole Middle East and subjugated all natives: Jews, Kurds, ezidis, Assyrians, etc. Moreover, Iran itself was colonized and Arabized by force. So, I would say any anti-Muslim anti-Arab movement in Iran is anticolonial by nature.

Where does it lead us? Nowhere. This is why this whole “colonial” vs. native etc is pointless — there was always some group of people living on a piece of land before some other group came.

Edit:

Also, I find it pretty hilarious that Shah was a colonial regime but Islamic Republic is not: France literally harbored Khomeini and the moment Shah fell they flew him back to lead the revolution. But since IRs rhetoric is anti west and anti Israel, the modern left completely forgives all the atrocities committed by IR: abuse of women, violent suppression of dissent, execution of rappers for a song, etc.

> Iranians are related to Arabs at the end of the day

Oof, this is a catastrophic screw-up and very offensive. I think you have some serious homework to do. Iranians are very distinct from Arabs in many ways; different language, different sect of Islam (which many of the civilians - particularly the youth - privately denounce), different culture. Iranians are about as much Arab as they are British. The country has been significantly invaded by many other countries throughout the ages, but the ethnicity remains distinct.

Arabs are about 2% of Iran’s population [1], and most of the rest will be insulted if you called them arabs to their face. Many see themselves better than arabs, and many more are mad about the arab occupation that brought Islam to take over the then-dominant faith of Zoroastrianism.

The average Israeli doesn’t hate the average Iranian. Israeli social media is full of posts about how people hope to one day visit Tehran. No, not as an occupier, get over yourself.

Your hate blinds you.

[1] https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2014/sep/24/report-arab-min...

Is it fair to call it colonialism instead of occupation?

> Is it fair to call it colonialism instead of occupation?

EDIT: Nvm.

I was referring to the Arab conquest of Iran after 633.

It’s colonialism.

Edit: a modern example of it is the introduction of arabic language in Iranian schools after the revolution because arabic is the language of the Quran. A similar thing is done by China w.r.t. uighurs, which are not allowed to teach their language, and culture in schools, it has to be only Mandarin. Or, in Turkey, where by constitution it is prohibited to use any non-Turkish language as a language of instruction in schools.

So yeah.

That isn’t colonialism or occupation, it’s straight up annexation. Romulus didn’t colonize Remus’s hills, they joined them into the whole as intended (and eventual) equals.

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