Iran Catch-All | IRAN WAR

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Batt Boy said:
Partly true. While SAVAK was wicked, the educated pushed for a pre-Islamic identity that emphasized Persian heritage and secularity. This greatly disturbed an element of the population. There was a real effort to "westernize". Women right's were fundamentally expanded and many of those reforms hold(voting, marriage rights, the right to education). There was also a huge distinction between rural advancement vs urban advancement with the city people earning much, much more. My take is that the 60s/70s were much more progressive than the post Islamic Revolution environment. That's the Iran the youth want to return to. Secularity and individual rights within a welfare state.
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Straying off the topic of this thread, but it was a broad coalition behind the Iranian Revolution. A huge driving force behind it consisted of progressives, liberal secularists, and intellectuals. But Rhuholla Khomeini essentially double-crossed them, took full control, and turned the nation into an Islamic state. Needless to say, people from both the left and the right within Iran wanted the Shah out.
 
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Batt Boy said:
I'm not suggesting it was liberal. I don't think many countries then were, including us. But to equate the Shah's regime to the Islamic Republic is telling.
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Agree. I was unfairly using your post to respond to this --

ZenMode said:
If this war/regime change returns Iran to the liberal Iran of the 70's, I'd say that is worth it to US and most of the world for a variety of reasons.
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Batt Boy said:
I'm not suggesting it was liberal. I don't think many countries then were, including us. But to equate the Shah's regime to the Islamic Republic is telling.
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They were different, but neither was good, and both had a lot of people in Iran wanting a revolution.
 
superrific said:
Well, you should know me well enough to know I wouldn't say there was "no risk." But I think the risk is quite small and pales in comparison to other threats. I very much doubt the human race will be recognizable in 500 years, if it even still exists.
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So don’t worry about proliferation because we are all going to die anyway? Seems a bit nihilistic.
 
ZenMode said:
If this war/regime change returns Iran to the liberal Iran of the 70's, I'd say that is worth it to US and most of the world for a variety of reasons.
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Can you name the last time we were successfully able to create a durable liberal democracy via forceful regime change?
 
ZenMode said:
Honestly wouldn't surprise me if there is no big wave and there's no possibility of US troops.
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Agreed on US troops but reports (subject to further confirmation) today indicate Gaza-style carpet bombing may be underway in Tehran.



www.theguardian.com

Middle East crisis live: Israel launches new attacks on ‘heart of Tehran’; US fighter planes mistakenly shot down in Kuwait

Iranian strikes hit Saudi and Qatar energy sites; US crew bailed out safely before crash-landing, says Kuwait
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

IMG_5391.jpeg
 
Calheel said:
Yes, pretty much any statement about future human behavior is a guess. But I think the odds are well over 50%, likely over 90%, that a nuclear weapon will be deployed in the next 100 years. And I'd think the odds are 99.9% if we go out 500 years. Of course, as you point out, there are several potentially greater human extinction events if we are willing to extend the time horizon to 500 years.

The whole point of anti-proliferation is to keep that percentage as low as possible for as long as possible. If there were no risk of nuclear weapons being used as anything other than a deterrent, then there would be no need for anti-proliferation foreign policy.
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Would this 99.9% guess include scenarios where a plucky band of misfits bravely go into space with a nuke to deflect an asteroid heading directly for Earth?
 
ZenMode said:
Hmmmm.... the closest I can come up with is Japan after WWII.
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I would tend to agree. And the 80 years of failed attempts since don't give you a little bit of pause in being "hopeful" that we can turn Iran into a stable democracy via hundreds of missile strikes and some vague instructions to Iranians to rise up and take over the government?
 
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