The stupidity involving Iraq and Iran.

John1234 · 04-12-08, 09:38 PM

Ok, so this is the bottom line of what has happened over the last many decades with our involvement between Iraq and Iran...

Note that prior to assisting to create Israel i do not know what went on.

We create Israel and things go badly from the start putting America as an enemy in the minds of a minority of the more extreme Muslims.

We are worried about the leader of Iran sympathizing with Communism.
We assist to overthrow him, putting a more ruthless leader in his place who btw, ended up being a communist sympathizer.
At some point Iran re-took their country and took it a little far by also capturing our embassy and holding them as prisoners only it was more like having hostages without a ransom.

Iraq has a long war with Iran.
We give Iraq lots of money, weapons, military intelligence, and training.
Possibly even sarin gas, something that has been speculated but not proven.

For decades we've been embargoing or sanctioning or simply using our influence to hurt Iran.
At first it was due to Communism, but ironically... Iran never had any intention to become a communist nation.
The reasons have ranged from just a general dislike of the country to our own style of revenge for the hostage crisis, to the current day sanctions over nuclear weapon development.

Here is where the "Stupidity" starts to really kick in:

-When the first gulf war occurred, the people we got slaughtered by telling them we have their backs if they oppose Saddam, are the same people that support Iran.

-Iran is the country we have been ****ing with really hard for decades.

-Now we have given the power in Iraq to the majority which are those same people that support Iran.

Basically all we have done is win the Iran-Iraq war for Iran.

So why the hell did we pay Saddam to fight Iran, and then turn around and switch sides and eliminate Saddam and hand Iraq over to Iran?

It does not matter what we do or how long we stay at this point.
Does not matter if there is peace or more violence.
Iran still wins.

Only now... instead of America just being a powerful ally of Israel, we have become an occupier of Muslim lands just like Israel.

And now some people want to attack Iran.
What is the point of all of this?

bhkad · 04-12-08, 10:11 PM

You've nicely managed to excise all motivations or evidence of the existence of Islamism, radical Jihad and terrorism as a tool to expand the religion from your neat little incomplete understanding of history and world events.

donsutherland1 · 04-12-08, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John1234

We are worried about the leader of Iran sympathizing with Communism.
We assist to overthrow him, putting a more ruthless leader in his place who btw, ended up being a communist sympathizer.
At some point Iran re-took their country and took it a little far by also capturing our embassy and holding them as prisoners only it was more like having hostages without a ransom.

The Shah was not a "communist sympathizer." In fact, he was a key bulwark against Soviet and radical Islamist expansionism. For purposes of historical background, here's what former Secretary Henry Kissinger wrote in his memoirs:

Iran’s intrinsic importance transcended the personalities of both countries’ leaders. Iran, the state with the longest history of self-rule between Egypt and China, can be the landbridge between the Soviet Union and the Arab Middle East; under the Shah it was a barrier shielding vulnerable Pakistan and Afghanistan from the pressures of both Soviet expansionism and Middle Eastern turbulence...

For decades, Iran under the Shah contributed importantly to the stability of the region and to international security. And he—or groups holding his views—might have continued to do so with a wiser policy by our successors.

If anything, the U.S. made an enormous strategic blunder in failing to back the Shah when radicals challenged his rule. A far more ruthless regime came into power subsequent to his fall and the geopolitical fallout from that development continues to reverberate to this day.

gunner · 04-13-08, 04:09 AM

During the Iran/Iraq war America helped militarily both sides initially, until it decided to go with Iraq.

paul.

bhkad · 04-13-08, 04:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunner

During the Iran/Iraq war America helped militarily both sides initially, until it decided to go with Iraq.

paul.

Linky?

This sounds like a misunderstood factoid or a happenstance related in an out of context manner which gives the wrong impression or the statement suffers from the omission of some other qualifying information.

By the way, that's a great Churchill quote.

TacticalEvilDan · 04-13-08, 04:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhkad

You've nicely managed to excise all motivations or evidence of the existence of Islamism, radical Jihad and terrorism as a tool to expand the religion from your neat little incomplete understanding of history and world events.

Also, I thought the reason we overthrew the democratically elected leadership of Iran was because they nationalized Iranian oil, or some such bullocks.

TacticalEvilDan · 04-13-08, 04:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunner

During the Iran/Iraq war America helped militarily both sides initially, until it decided to go with Iraq.

Typically the government doesn't do that.

That's usually what the bankers do, financially speaking.

John1234 · 04-13-08, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by donsutherland1

The Shah was not a "communist sympathizer." In fact, he was a key bulwark against Soviet and radical Islamist expansionism. For purposes of historical background, here's what former Secretary Henry Kissinger wrote in his memoirs:

Iran’s intrinsic importance transcended the personalities of both countries’ leaders. Iran, the state with the longest history of self-rule between Egypt and China, can be the landbridge between the Soviet Union and the Arab Middle East; under the Shah it was a barrier shielding vulnerable Pakistan and Afghanistan from the pressures of both Soviet expansionism and Middle Eastern turbulence...

For decades, Iran under the Shah contributed importantly to the stability of the region and to international security. And he—or groups holding his views—might have continued to do so with a wiser policy by our successors.

If anything, the U.S. made an enormous strategic blunder in failing to back the Shah when radicals challenged his rule. A far more ruthless regime came into power subsequent to his fall and the geopolitical fallout from that development continues to reverberate to this day.

I believe you as applied to the communism issue.
It was something that I was unsure of to begin with and i thank you for correcting me on that one point.

But i am not convinced that the Shah was less ruthless than the leaders put into place after the college students helped re-take their country.
Do you have any links or quotes such as the one you presented about communism?

I thought it was similar to what we did to Chile.
We assassinated their Leader and put a ruthless killer in his place that murdered his political opponents for over a decade.

Also, do you find any fault in the main point of the OP post which is basically that we have declared Iran our enemy for over 40 years now and put all kinds of money into Iraq to battle Iran, just to turn around and hand Iraq over to the Iranian supporters within Iraq.

John1234 · 04-13-08, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gunner

During the Iran/Iraq war America helped militarily both sides initially, until it decided to go with Iraq.

paul.

During that time frame we were big into selling arms across the world.
Real big. And we had very little government control over it.

It is possible, if not likely, that we did help both sides as far as selling arms is concerned.
But with Iraq, we did much more than sell them weapons.
We gave them military intelligence, training, advisers, and money.
We were practically fighting Iran ourselves by proxy in a way similar to China fighting us during Vietnam and Korea.

John1234 · 04-13-08, 11:12 AM

Another interesting topic of discussion related to the same point is the connection between America's effort to hurt Iran over the last 40 years and Iran emerging as the super power of the Middle East.

When we started trying to hurt Iran some 40 or 50 years ago, Iran was just another dust bowl of unorganized savages just like the rest of the Middle East.
We have applied more pressure to Iran than any Muslim nation on the globe.
Now they have emerged as the most powerful Muslim Nation.
And they have done this while we restricted them as much as possible.

Could this mean that we accomplish the OPPOSITE of what we want when we apply pressure to the Muslim world?

The countries we did not screw with only had moderate growth and development.
But Iran, the country we screwed with the hardest, has had amazingly impressive growth and development in all sectors.

Could it be that our tampering only serves to motivate them?