Comment by obrero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by obrero | Hacker News Reader

Iran had a parliamentary democracy until 1953. In 1953, the prime minister, Mosaddegh, began talking about nationalizing Iran's oil. The UK and the USA went by the normal playbook, bankrolling minorities, religious and otherwise to subvert the government (like the Hmong in Vietnam, Miskitos in Nicaragua etc.) The CIA and SIS also backed the ayatollahs who wanted to overthrow the parliament and establish an Islamic republic - like Ayatollah Mohammad Behbahani, Mohammad Falsafi and even Abol-Ghasem Kashani at the end.

So western readers knowing this can know the history - the secular parliament of Iran was overthrown when the US and UK backed the ayatollahs and others in ousting it. Then in the 1970s, the ayatollahs wanted an end to US influence in Iran, which is when Iran began becoming a pariah. US nuclear companies were printing ads in newspapers boasting about how they were helping make Iran a nuclear power ( http://img.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/sh... ). This is in the years before the GOP invited Netanyahu to Congress to scold Obama that he wasn't bombing Iran for wanting to use nuclear power (also, it's implicit that Israel is allowed to be a nuclear power, Iran isn't).

It has little difference from other countries - if you notice, the US has been working to overthrow the last of the old Nasserite pan-Arab nationalist pseudo-socialist governments like in Iraq, Libya and more recently Syria. In fact, the US has been arming jihadists fighting Assad's secular government - something Putin himself has noted. Meanwhile the US backs to the hilt Islamic dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Brunei etc. which are lapdogs to the US.

This notion that the US government is against Islamic radicalism is absured. It's true enemies are always the Qadaffis, the Saddam Hussein's, the Assads, the Mossadeghs. The US supports Islamic fundamentalist jihadists - Osama bin Laden is a creation of the US, banking his and the mujahideen fight against a secular socialist Afghani government. Sylvester Stallone made a Rambo movie where he went to Afghanistan and fought alongside the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, attacking the secular socialist Afghani government and Russians, the end of the movie credits are "dedicated to the brave Mujaheddin fighters". That movie came out in 1988, 13 years before 9/11.

The story was about a prisoner of conscience in Iran. Did you just take the opportunity to rant about U.S. foreign policy?

I'm not sure how U.S. foreign policy would excuse Iran of its human rights abuses.

Did you just take the opportunity of reading a note that the US and UK overthrew Iran's secular parliament and empowered the ayatollahs, only to take your western hand and shake a holier-than-thou hand at Iran that it is abusing human rights? The ayatollahs who may or may not be abusing human rights are the ones installed by the west in 1953.

Also - the Shah in direction with Falsafi started the anti-Bahai campaigns in 1955, which had not been going on under Iran's parliament. The US puts in a puppet, in less than two years he stirs up a massive anti-Bahai campaign which involves riots, lynchings. You seem to be in complete shock, you want to be a westerner being pious and holier-than-thou against something the west itself did, against the will of Mossadegh and the elected parliament of Iran.

Wasn't it little less direct than this? I thought that the US/UK installed the Shah to replace the democratic Iranian government. He was overthrown by the revolution in 1979 and it was following this revolution (which included elements of secularists as well as islamists) that the ayatollahs took control? The US/UK never backed the ayatollahs and started supporting Saddam in the Iran/Iraq war.

I.e. standard western fiddling about going catastrophically wrong for everyone.

The ayatollahs got into control because the Shah used them to overthrow the parliament (Behbahani and Falsafi and finally Kashani), used them to attack the left etc. In fact, as I mentioned in another post, one of their first acts (1955) were the Shah and Falsafi conspiring to start an anti-Bahai campaign which caused riots which killed Bahai.

The US and shah and Savak did too well stamping out secularism, left-wing ideas, even liberal ideas about parliament, democracy etc. Eventually the ayatollahs and Bazaari etc. amassed great power, and turned on the Shah.

Mossadegh was never in the pocket of the ayatollahs, but he did try to qualm moderates like Kashani. But Kashani eventually turned on him (the hard-line preachers had far before).

Mossadiq was as a matter of historic fact a dictator, complete with 99% election victory results. Let's not allow NYTimes and CIA to write Iranian history for us as it is, and has been, currently convenient for the West to paint the Shah of Iran as a sort of incompetent monster and do mea culpa for past unwanted intrusion in Iranian politics and society.

Re. Bahais, this is a controversial religion with roots in 19th century mysticism. The prophet of this religion claims to be the Messiah and pretty much every other Messiah rolled into one. He is in fact the claimant to the 2nd return of Christ. Now, should a nation allow anyone to go around claiming whoppers like this and allowed to operate a religion (which affords quite a lot of privs. in society). So the anti-bahai issue in Iran is really mostly about power and politics and has little to do with the Spirit. Iranians feel this is a fake religion that is used by West to manipulate Iranian society. Think of it as Scientology and Germany for a perspective.

[p.s. obviously the above does not condone the actions of the Mullah regime. ]

I am with your points up until the generalization that "Iranians feel this is a fake religion". I cant speak for all Iranians... anyway your larger point about this being about power is spot on. Another aspect of the Baha'i world-view that is likely even more important is the fact that they dont have clergy. What do you think a government that is intrinsically tied to its clergy is going to do?

Which side of that line is LDS? 7th Day Adventists? Jedi? Rosicrusians?

In order to move beyond the views your putting forward here we need to ask: what is a religion?

Not to discredit the rest of your post, but this:

> ... something Putin himself has noted.

is not much more than an appeal to authority. And a bad one at that. Putin has not exactly been making a name for himself as the most trustworthy source of news and fact since, well, forever.

Your post would look better without that sentence.

This has been noted in the western press too. For example:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/1...

Well, it says that an Islamic militia backed by the US gave up its arms to Al-Qaeda. Although two things to note with the sub-title "Moderate rebels in Syria that the US have armed and trained to fight jihadists have surrendered to al-Qaeda".

#1 - the adjective "moderate" is applied to the group. This is an Islamic militia whose origins were backed by the Muslim Brotherhood to create a government mimicking that of Mohammed's during the time of the caliphate. Would that be called moderate if they weren't in a strange alliance with the US?

#2 - not mentioned any where in the article is that some Harakat Hazm went over to Jabhat al-Nusra.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com