By their aggression, the Iranians have brought into being a de facto Israeli-Saudi alliance.
Iran's "aggression" has long been exaggerated and taken out of context. Iran's concern is Israel and the Shi'a. In fact, despite Khomeini's anti-Israeli rhetoric since the 1950s, it wasn't until after Israel tossed into the Lebanese Civil War and after the Islamic Revolution that Iranians really even started to care about Israel. Another fact, it wasn't until after the U.S. proved that it really could not protect the Shi'a population in Iraq from Sunni extremists that Iran began funding Shia's militias, in which some targeted Americans. And virtually all of Iran's moves are geopolitical within its own region; and it is no more (even far less) aggressive than Israel or the various Sunni governments (Saudi, Qatar, Egypt, etc.), both of which have respectively invaded neighbors on a constant basis and funded Islamist extremism.
- Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded the newly independent Israel in 1948.
- Israel, France, and Britain invaded Egypt in 1956.
- Israel invaded Egypt in 1967 (because the Soviets fed Nasser bad Intel in which raised tensions).
- The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
- Iraq invaded Iran in 1980.
- Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982.
- Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991.
- Saudi-created Islamists joined with Egyptian-created Islamists and gave the world 9/11.
- The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
- The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003.
Do you see what is missing in all of this history of invasions and regional instability? -Iran...invading anybody.
And when it comes to funding Islamist activity, Saudi Arabia and Qatar (especially now) have long become the major players that sew discord in democratic and even Sunni governments everywhere. During the Arab Spring, Qatar quickly learned the benefits of being an economic benefactor towards Islamist agitation while the U.S. completely buried its head and allowed the vastly-large democratic movement to fend for itself because our Senate would rather be ignorant and Obama weakly struggled between supporting or not supporting our dictators. Virtually all of the extremist organizations from west Africa to Afghanistan are Sunni inspired, not Shi'a.
Iran is the "enemy" only for two reasons:
1) For the U.S., it goes back to our long-held 1979 Hostage Crisis grudge, which actually contradicts our government's clandestine relationship with Iran in the 1980s (Iran-Contra) and the CIA's brief 2000~2001 collaboration against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And even after the largest candle-lit vigil in the Middle East over the 9/11 victims was held in Tehran, not Israel or Saudi Arabia, Bush goes ahead an announced that Iran is a member of the Axis of Evil in 2002. And why? Because of reason number 2...
2) With eighteen of the 9/11 terrorists being Saudi Arabian, and all of them being Sunni, Bush sought to distract the American people. Some, even to this day try to argue that it was Iran that was behind 9/11, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Ever since the Islamic Revolution and the Hostage Crisis, U.S. Presidents and the major news outlets have exaggerated Iran's activity against the U.S. and all along Saudi Arabia and Israel have been there to encourage this ignorance. Major U.S. news outlets spent the first few days after the 1993 WTC bombing blaming Iran with absolutely no evidence. They even spent the first two days after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 making declarations that it was probably Arabs, and most certainly Iran (making no attempt to differentiate). So when Bush makes his arbitrary "Axis of Evil" speech, even after Iran had spent years and years financing Massoud's Northern Alliance against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the American people shift off of Saudi Arabia and Israel got the satisfaction that their enemy (Iran) remains America's enemy.
But every time Iran proves that it is a player within its own region, and with its own foreign policy, we take bits and pieces as "proof" in order to secure this continued game of scapegoating.
