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Hokashin t1_j06fslq wrote

Why are some of these middle eastern countries seemingly stuck in the dark ages?

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freediverx01 t1_j06jzbg wrote

Iran was fine until the CIA helped overthrow their democratically elected leader and installed a puppet Shah in his place. That’s what triggered the revolution by the religious extremists in charge today.

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SsurebreC t1_j06lqb0 wrote

Iran's Shah also tortured and executed rioters. Something about being a totalitarian government - whether ruled by religious nuts or monarchy - is the common theme here. Heck, democracies do this too if you've seen recent news. This is just headlines that hope to inspire people to overthrow the current wave of dictators and maybe open up Iran to a better form of government.

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freediverx01 t1_j06ly5n wrote

Have you seen photos of Iran before the Shah? They had a modern prosperous culture.

Iran democratically elected their own leader, only for the CIA to overthrow him in a matter of days to replace him with the Shah.

America doesn’t give a fuck about democracy. It only cares about preserving its power and corporate profits.

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SsurebreC t1_j06no88 wrote

I've seen photos of Iran and it was gorgeous. China is also beautiful. So is Jordan and Egypt. It depends on where you look specifically considering vast majority of the planet is poor - including Iran even back then. Gorgeous architecture and a reasonably well-dressed population doesn't mean what I said didn't happen. More info...

I'm certainly not defending the current crop of religious wingnuts ruling the country with an iron fist but they simply replaced an unelected dictator which goes back to a long line of other unelected dictators going back to the BC era.

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freediverx01 t1_j06nvvi wrote

Why does everyone keep missing my central point which is that Iran held democratic elections, and elected their own leader only for the CIA to come in and overthrow him because he was a threat to American oil companies. And that’s what led to the subsequent revolution by Muslim clerics who rule the country with an iron fist today.

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SsurebreC t1_j06pbgu wrote

Oh sorry, I was focused on the "Iran was fine" bit that you started with. Iran was not fine (as far as being free). Iran had a dictator - an unelected king (aka Shah) at the time. Mohammad Mosaddegh was just the prime minister. The Shah was still in charge of Iran and personally appointed those who elected prime ministers.

CIA simply removed the Prime Minister.

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Embarrassed-Tiger-27 t1_j08du6b wrote

I would hardly call the 1952 election in Iran a free election. The prime Minister manipulated the results to prevent rural voters (the same people that formed the backbone of the theocracy) from gaining their rightful seats in government.

Additionally seizing foriegn assets with no compensation or negotiation is a shitty and stupid move. The oil assets were already jointly owned under a deal with his predecessor, simply going taksy backsy over a legitimate deal is how you become an international pariah.

Does that mean the Shah was good for the country no, but he was hardly some perfect innocent victim who did no wrong.

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truecore t1_j08o3xc wrote

"Democratically elected leader" is always an interesting way to describe Mossadegh, the guy who cancelled the elections halfway through to prevent opposition gains, who allowed wealthy elites to dominate those elections, who banned the Communists from gaining a single seat despite being #2 in total votes, and who annulled the results that saw a KDPI member elected. It wouldn't be a longshot to say a good number of Iranian people were disaffected by their government even before the U.S. coup'd the government.

The elections were incredibly corrupt. Khomenei published his first pro-theocratic work in 1942, though the Shah's regime was almost certainly one of the main reasons he became marja in 1962. I don't think Mossadegh's policies would have been complimentary to Khomenei's line of thinking anyways, or that if the elections hadn't been overturned that radical Islamism wouldn't have taken hold. The Islamic Brotherhood had been active in the middle east advocating for theocratic government in opposition to the cultural decline caused by rampant Westernization for decades before the Iranian revolution.

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Good_old_Marshmallow t1_j08pehg wrote

The sad thing is the revolution wasn’t one solely based of religious extremists but had a well rounded angry population.

The unfortunate thing was they were scared of international backlash and looked to India for a model. India put the hyper religious Ghandi as the leader of the revolution and received global respect. There was some thought that instead of being seen as a communist revolution they could put the religious radicals in charge as figure heads to get global recognition and national unity. Unfortunately that was letting the wolves into the hen house

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freediverx01 t1_j0d0jsr wrote

Huge difference between a religious leader who spent a lifetime advocating for peaceful resistance and a religion based around global conquest and persecution and subjugation of non-believers. But then again the latter seems to have worked for Christians.

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Good_old_Marshmallow t1_j0d0z2o wrote

I mean I imagine the concern what they didn’t want to be seen as another Cuba or Viet Nam and hoped a nationalist religious face would prevent Cold War politics from provoking an invasion. Of course that may have been one of the worst mistakes they could have made

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ebcdicZ t1_j06lmc4 wrote

The Shah crowned himself King of Kings. He couldn't have been a puppet.

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freediverx01 t1_j06m6w1 wrote

How The CIA Overthrew Iran’s Democracy In 4 Days

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days

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ebcdicZ t1_j06mnbp wrote

He was drunk with his own power. https://youtu.be/dWxwtILhfvE

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freediverx01 t1_j06mun7 wrote

You’re missing the point. He was installed by the CIA. He could be as drunk on power as he wanted so long as the oil profits kept flowing to US oil companies.

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ebcdicZ t1_j06r194 wrote

It seemed like he was completely clueless to all of this. I don't think you understood the sarcasm in my original comment.

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SsurebreC t1_j06l5pm wrote

Because in Islamic calendar, it's the year 1442. They're doing the same thing Christians were doing in 1442.

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taez555 t1_j06u3pa wrote

Let's be honest though. If you took a poll, you'd probably get at least 40% of American's who'd be ok with public execution and displays like this.

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canada432 t1_j07uc9o wrote

In 2018, 33% of Coloradans voted against outlawing slavery. There are still a startling number of people who are little more than medieval serfs with iphones.

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taez555 t1_j07wop1 wrote

I get your point, but aren't like 99.9% of the population serfs with iphones though?

It's not like any of us actually own the land we're living on. Sure you can buy property, but it's really only yours until someone in charge says it's not. We're all pretty much beholden to some master.

Really the main difference is that some of us are aware we're slaves and some of us don't (who apparently would vote to keep it legal).

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canada432 t1_j07zg0f wrote

I'm referring to intelligence and reasoning. Humans have not biologically evolved in any significant way in tens or hundreds of thousands of years. We've advanced through passing down and building on previous knowledge, which requires education. If you're uneducated, you are very literally no smarter than a medieval peasant. We didn't get biologically smarter, we iterated on knowledge that the people who came before us learned, and then we pass down what we learn. If you spent science class dipping your fingers in glue and peeling it off instead of learning cellular biology, you are not particularly functionally different than a medieval serf, simply acting on emotion and lashing out at everything you don't understand. And for the people in this situation, there's a lot they don't understand.

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taez555 t1_j080q1f wrote

On the plus side, they vote. :-)

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DeliciousJello1717 t1_j099xfz wrote

Is this a joke what does this even mean

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SsurebreC t1_j09ihmx wrote

Yes it's a joke. The joke is that in 1442, Christians were hanging people and witchcraft hunts were going to begin soon (i.e. ignorance, despair, and cruelty ruled). Same thing the Middle Eastern countries are doing now in their year 1442.

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Impossible-Pie4598 t1_j07rq6l wrote

This is Islam. We don’t need to westernize it or normalize the ‘love’ parts. We did that with Christianity and still Trump and the dumb-as-rocks evangelicals cause problems of hate and violence.

Just fucking end religion. It holds no value. It’s all a bunch of made up bullshit. It’s time to stop placating it and pretending it’s something to respect- as if delusion is something to be cherished.

End religion. And especially if you are a woman, get the fuck out of religion. It was designed to control you. Don’t take parts you like- Reject all of religion.

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aiandi t1_j087qa4 wrote

Hollywood got it right in "Homeland". Brody was hung via crane... In Iran. I didn't realize that was a thing. So sad.

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Al_Jazzera t1_j07pd6t wrote

Best not lose that grip on power or the crane will come for you as well.

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