rocky the dog said:

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I posted this on another thread. Maybe it will shed some light...partially...

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bonfarr said:

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The Shah's government was considered corrupt and oppressive by many Iranians. He was accused of using many of the same tactics against his people that the Ayotollah did including brutal prisons and torture. It wasn't a big fairy tale like a Disney film. Lots of economic unrest as well. He was diagnosed with Cancer at the same time he started to lose his grip on the country and ended up fleeing to exile.

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Anti-taxxer said:

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I feel like I'm missing something:

* Shah is in power; friendly to the west; opposition is imprisoned. Shah deposed, sent into exile

* 1979 - Students take hostages in the embassy when Carter lets the Shah in to US for cancer treatments, with the goal of having the Shah returned for some sort of trial.

* Carter doesn't concede; students not really sure what to do; enter the Ayatollah

If the students were progressive, how did they usher in such a conservative (not our definition perhaps, but religiously so) regime? I find it hard to believe they didn't know what type of society the Ayatollah would introduce and enforce.

Where did Hezbollah come from? Are they currently in Iran? Or are they in Lebanon?

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revvie said:

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Anti-taxxer said:

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I feel like I'm missing something:

* Shah is in power; friendly to the west; opposition is imprisoned. Shah deposed, sent into exile

* 1979 - Students take hostages in the embassy when Carter lets the Shah in to US for cancer treatments, with the goal of having the Shah returned for some sort of trial.

* Carter doesn't concede; students not really sure what to do; enter the Ayatollah

If the students were progressive, how did they usher in such a conservative (not our definition perhaps, but religiously so) regime? I find it hard to believe they didn't know what type of society the Ayatollah would introduce and enforce.

Where did Hezbollah come from? Are they currently in Iran? Or are they in Lebanon?

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You need to go back to 1953 when MI6 and CIA orchestrated overthrown of Iranian government and installed the Shah Reza Pahovi.

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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Psycho Bunny said:

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Go back to the 1920s. When the Ottoman empire fell, chaos followed.

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The US staying out of WW1 would have probably been the best thing that could have happened in the 1900's. The empires falling was a disaster.

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DX2011 said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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Psycho Bunny said:

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Go back to the 1920s. When the Ottoman empire fell, chaos followed.

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The US staying out of WW1 would have probably been the best thing that could have happened in the 1900's. The empires falling was a disaster.

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I know this is a popular take, but I really am having trouble agreeing the more I read/learn about the late 1600s through the early 1800's. European powers were largely at total war with each other (especially England/France with various allies along the way) for a couple of hundred years.

They were much more significantly at peace during the Industrial Revolution and WW1 was everyone realizing the horror of that same conflict but with modern logistics/weapons.

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Psycho Bunny said:

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I knew someone would have knowledge on the subject. CIA and M16 back in the 50s and 60s were complete moron. As they are today.

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Martels Hammer said:

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Hubert J. Farnsworth said:

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LMCane said:

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the Soviet Union communists and Frenchies brought Ayatollah Khomeini back to Iran

you can guess why.

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The French suck so much.

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The average American and European for that matter have no idea just how much of Africa's problems are because of France and their Foreign Legion. Or how weak the French economy would be without their African grift.

In short France runs two currencies in about a third of Africa and props up several dictators with cash and the Legion. In exchange for Uranium and other resources below market value. Any African political movement that gains traction to overthrow any of the National Governments gets crushed by the Legion or competing groups secretly backed by France. Exchange rate manipulation on the two currencies imposed by france in these areas takes care of the rest.

Meanwhile French citizens get cheap electricity and other perks, while producing very little. I always laugh when I see the stats that claim the French worker is as productive as the German or American. Their entire economy is based on a GIANT scam.

To compete France would have to do things like work something close to 40 hours a week at something with marketable value. Thats not going to happen anytime soon. Outside of tourism and a few luxury food exports they have nothing.

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Yukon Cornelius said:

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It was literally our and Englands fault. No one wants to talk about it. Generally when you remove a longstanding political establishment what replaces it doesn't have staying power. And generally then what rises afterwards is incredibly radical and violent. You can see it in Nazi Germany when post WW1 France created a faux German government. You can see it in Russia after the royal family was murdered/exiled. Japan is another great example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

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aggie93 said:

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Anti-taxxer said:

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I feel like I'm missing something:

* Shah is in power; friendly to the west; opposition is imprisoned. Shah deposed, sent into exile

* 1979 - Students take hostages in the embassy when Carter lets the Shah in to US for cancer treatments, with the goal of having the Shah returned for some sort of trial.

* Carter doesn't concede; students not really sure what to do; enter the Ayatollah

If the students were progressive, how did they usher in such a conservative (not our definition perhaps, but religiously so) regime? I find it hard to believe they didn't know what type of society the Ayatollah would introduce and enforce.

Where did Hezbollah come from? Are they currently in Iran? Or are they in Lebanon?

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Iran is an incredibly complex situation as to how things went down the way they did. FWIW the James Clavell book "Whirlwind" gives better insight than anything I have ever read or seen. He wrote "Shogun" and "Taipan" but wrote "Whirlwind" in the early 80s about Iran in the period between the Ayatollah first coming to Iran through the takeover and goes into incredible detail about all the forces at work.

One thing that can't be understated is the Soviets and their proxies the Mujahadeen which basically was a mix of radical Islam and Marxism. Really they were working to do anything they could to get the US out of Iran and they cut a deal with the Ayatollah to support him. Remember this was when the US was incredibly weak under Carter and his naive approach to foreign policy as well as only being a few years after we left Vietnam and our military was at it's weakest point post WWII while the Soviets had a strong leader in Brezhnev. The Soviets had infiltrated the students as well and were experts at manipulation, it's not like we don't see the same thing in the US right now. The key is to stress the negatives and how terrible things are while being very vague about how they would actually fix anything. Works like a charm on the young and privileged.

Carter and the other European powers were lulled into a fantasy that the Ayatollah was going to be a peaceful leader that wanted freedom for his people and would be an ally. It was very similar to how Castro initially came into power in Cuba in many ways. Many of the folks that fought to bring the Ayatollah back home and depose the Shah were among the first to be executed. Essentially the moment he took power everything changed and the coup was on. The Shah had left and had cancer and the Ayatollah jumped into the vacuum with the Soviets help.

They Shah certainly had his flaws and his SAVAK was brutal but the reality is some level of that is necessary to keep control in Iran. The biggest mistake most people make about Iran is thinking of it as one people or worse confusing them with Arabs. The reality is it is incredibly diverse and each region is very different from the others. You also have a huge divide in that Iran has some extremely well educated people (they crank out some incredible PhDs and MDs) and a large part of the populous that is similar to what you find in the mountains of Afghanistan.

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Pooh-ah95_ESL said:

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This is a great thread and very insightful. The world is currently rapidly changing and being remade faster and faster. Many countries and mindsets are still in the post-world war II era. I truly feel what we are seeing is directly related to changing the world to modern thinking. Regimes and systems from the '70s are rapidly breaking down. We are seeing essentially death throws of systems from that era.

We are also seeing the direct result of the world allowing the USA to become the world's only superpower and we are finally exercising the might and the money that we have invested in this over the last 80 years. We have not exercised this power due to the post-world war II mindset, but the world is changing rapidly.

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AgFrogfan said:

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Yukon Cornelius said:

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It was literally our and Englands fault. No one wants to talk about it. Generally when you remove a longstanding political establishment what replaces it doesn't have staying power. And generally then what rises afterwards is incredibly radical and violent. You can see it in Nazi Germany when post WW1 France created a faux German government. You can see it in Russia after the royal family was murdered/exiled. Japan is another great example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

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Uhhh...I'm pretty sure anyone with a Romanov Royal bloodline is still on a hit list. Didn't the US send some secret agents over there to support the "Whites" over the Lenin led Bolsheviks? That went to hell in a handbasket for us. We had good intentions.
John Quincy Adams was our first U.S. Minister to Russia back in 1809. In fact, if memory serves, they were one of the first countries/empires to officially recognize the United States as a sovereign and independent nation-state.

Germany/Prussia/Austria really screwed the pooch when they "dropped the pilot" Otto Von Bismarck. Woody Wilson's League of Nations (While well intentioned) was a recipe for disaster.

WW1 - Democrat President
WWII- Democrat President
Korean War - Democrat President, Ike ended it
Vietnam War - Democrat President, Nixon ended it, Ping-Pong Diplomacy
Gulf War, Desert Storm August 1990- Jan 1991 - Republican President
- I remember being 5 years old and getting mad that we didn't take out Saddam Hussein. I had an awesome Janitor at my pre-school and I remember him telling me he was getting called to active duty. I told him to come back after his service so I could see him again. I've never seen him since. It's a terrible feeling at that age.
Iraq/Afghanistan (2001-2021) - Republican President - Like him or not, #43 established a solid presence in the Middle East that set the stage for Trump's current global flex, while Obama got the Osama feather in his cap. Putin is d*ckin around in Ukraine for no real reason.

Havana, Cuba - Get ready! We got plenty of classic cars to sell you once a stable and prosperous goverment is back in order.

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