Actually, i've just been reminded. Before the US emplaced the dictatorship in 1953, Iran had parliamentary democracy. It wasn't brilliant, but it's better than now, when the election was clearly sabotaged by the ruling party.
Will Khāmene?i flee Iran?
- Thread starter myp
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Actually, i've just been reminded. Before the US emplaced the dictatorship in 1953, Iran had parliamentary democracy. It wasn't brilliant, but it's better than now, when the election was clearly sabotaged by the ruling party.
Are you sure it was a parliamentary democracy? I thought it was more of a plutocracy? That was completely and utterly corrupt from top to bottom. There is very little good I can find except perhaps that scientists could at least study freely abroad, they had very high standards in education and were able to mingle easily with international experts in their fields. Almost like Iran went back to the dark middle ages when Khomeini took over.
Well, it had the structure, anyway. :giggle:
The US could also be described as a plutocracy, come to think of it.
There was a more democratic/republic form of government before (and more importantly, there was a stronger push to move in that direction.) Throw in corporate interests and the CIA's meddling and we helped establish a more totalitarian regime, which today comes back to bite us. This sort of thing has happened several times throughout history and many refer to it as "blowback." A similar occurrence can even be witnessed with Osama Bin Laden and Afghanistan when we intervened in the fight against the Soviets.
Right, but something like what the CIA did would never have been possible if the country had been solid and corruption resistant. There were large slush funds everywhere that helped to buy the CIA's "meddling position" in Iran at that time. Almost identical to Afghanistan, except of course Afghanistan is completely undeveloped and small in comparison with Iran.
But either way, does that make what the CIA did right? Not only did they meddle in a country in which they really should not have jurisdiction, but in turn both those incidences ended up being very costly to the American people.
Also, to an extent, I think that any government is susceptible to corruption such as this- another reason why I am for a small government (which would reduce that likelihood.)
Not only is it completely wrong, but they ALWAYS seem to bungle things and get found out. I totally agree, they most definitely created major problems for the US and may also have been responsible for the absolute hatred agains Americans in Iran, probably hastening the process of the end of the Iranian Government at that time.
Isn't that historic though? In present times it is the Italians who are funding the Taliban so that their soldiers could be safe in war zones? I seem to recall that towards the end of 2008, that the Italians had come to an agreement with the Taliban war lords, where they were paid to be at peace, so of course did not mention that to the French, when the Italians had moved away last year. So the French thought the Italians had done wonders for peace in that area, and then got real war from the Taliban. Sort of a real scandal. The Italians are really hopeless with war.
I heard about that, yeah. Corruption. Horrible results.
But it wasn't that historic. It was only 31 years ago.
No, this happened over the last two years. History seems to be repeating itself all the time. We don't seem to be able to learn our lessons, or maybe it is because we only have a few years to live?
No, this happened over the last two years. History seems to be repeating itself all the time. We don't seem to be able to learn our lessons, or maybe it is because we only have a few years to live?
No, i meant being given military aid by the US. It was in '79 - the US funded extremists like the Northern Alliance and the Mujahideen (of which the Taliban are a breakaway faction) in order to combat the Soviet Union in a proxy war to stop it from expanding its borders.
Apologies. I thought you were referring to the content of my previous posting. I was well aware of the US funding for the Taliban before in fighting the Russians, it seems to be a universal accusation against the US when reference is made to their present combat with the Taliban.
Not so much an accusation. Rather an explanation of the fact they're well-equipped. And also why they were in power. The same can be argued for Iraq and Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party. Intervention causes destabilisation.
OK, got it. Although by now I'm almost certain they are getting their funding and support of different equally or perhaps more wealthy sources.
There's probably a good volume of support - financial and otherwise - from Saudi Arabia. Not so much the state - which is very closely allied with the United States - but from people within it. Saudi Arabia, of course, is the most religiously fundamentalist country in the world.
Unless you're a rich foreigner. I think Mecca is the only truly religious place in the country, regardless of who you are.
I checked up on this on the Internet and could not find any literature about Saudi Arabia being the most religiously fundamentalist country in the world. Do you know of a source that lists the countries in a ranking order of islamic fundamentalists?
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