If you can get it, read (or listen to) “All the Shahs Men” it tells the story of the iranian revolution and the shenanigans that led up to it. Who would have thought a dude hiding under a pile of coats in the back seat of a car could so dramatically alter the course of world events.
One of the greatest occurrences of blowback in self-interested American foreign policy that reverberates to this day. Iran could’ve been a beacon of democracy in the middle east but foreign meddling by US/UK ended that possibility. We overthrew a democratically elected leader and in his place installed a brutal, friendly-to-us dictator, the Shah. That led to the Islamic revolution which overthrew the Shah and here we are today. Few Americans know about this shameful part of US history. Obama I believe was the first President to publicly acknowledge the deed.
Nobody hates the USA without a reason. All the anti americanism in the world exists because the US has been systematically fucking over other countries without mercy. Looks like people don’t like oppressors who exploit them …
My favorite has been the shift in the definition of ‘nuanced’ to mean “the singular date in recent history that lets me assign blame in one direction and ignoring everything else”… somehow always used in a patronizing tone by someone who thinks Colonization was actually good because it brought us the iphone
I don’t think the point is to laud today’s Iran, but to pinpoint that the shit is happening today is consequence of the actions of the U.S. of yesteryear.
So when Americans say “why do they hate us?” it’s not really because of their freedoms.
IIRC, the US got involved at the behest of British Petroleum (BP).
I believe BP owned basically the entirety of the oil industry in Iran and ran it like the company towns of old. The living conditions were bad, the pay was worse, and the work was as dangerous as it was backbreaking. So when a beloved leader was democratically elected partially on the pledge of kicking BP out of Iran - which he did by nationalizing the oil industry - BP came crying to the US. Who were all too happy to destroy the biggest democracy in the Middle East in the name of oil.
Yeah. The US actually initially refused to help the Brits overthrow the Iranian government for nationalizing the oil industry, until the Brits pressed the “RED SCARE” button a few months later, at which point all US rationality went out the window.
Right I know that’s the translation. But they do mean they want America to be destroyed/gone/dead/whatever. And they are willing to kill Americans and attack American interests if they can.
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